Best Sets for Sealed Play

[Machinus]

My store is having a limited gladiator league, where you can choose any 4 boosters and make a deck with them. You can play for ante with anyone in the league, and you get a new pack at 20 losses, I think.

My question is this: what do you think are the best 4 sets for limited play (I have to choose 4 different ones). My initial temptation was to pick stuff like destiny or saga, but since the games are ante, I think a more spread out power level would be a better idea.

Another consideration is cost and availability; I don't think they can get stuff like antiquities or legends, and certainly not unlimited stuff.

Any ideas?

[CrazyCarl]

Tempest is really good as in the common slot you can get ROLLING THUNDAR .  I like Torment a lot as well.  Odyssey is OK, Invasion, Planeshift or Apocolypse are also fine.  Opening FTK is such a good feeling.

[Machinus]

I was already thinking of going red/black and choosing torment as one of them. I was considering planeshift + invasion, as well as tempest. I am still not sure though. Is r/b the best way to go? I think champions actually has some pretty good cards for that kind of deck. Also, I thought about opening a darksteel so I could get a skullclamp/vial/bola/sword.

If ante is a big enough consideration, perhaps running a land-heavy deck is a good idea? Should I think about opening cards with good land abilities (prophecy, champions)?

[Jacob Orlove]

Visions is super-hot. There's so many amazing limited cards in that set. No real bombs, but plenty of very solid cards.

Saga is great when you're doing this draft-style, because the first pick is usually amazing and the quality drops off very quickly. For sealed, it's much less appealing.

Tempest is really good, especially if other people don't go for it. Shadow is insanely undercosted, and there's a ton of removal.

IPA are all solid, but will usually force you to run specific color combinations.

One strategy is to choose what colors you might want to play, and choose packs based on that. For example, if you wanted to play heavy black, Torment and Saga are very good choices.

[Machinus]

Yeah, this is definitely sealed. Perhaps I should change the title to that.

Visions looks good. I want to maximize my chances of having a power level that is spread around. What are the chances of me running black no matter what? If they are high then torment is a good pick. If not I should choose a more diverse set.

So far I think visions and tempest are in. Tempest has buyback and shadow which are both really good. Visions just has a lot of stuff, like suq'ata lancer, rock slide, panther warriors, knight of valor,  gossamer chains, and the charms, for the common slot. I am not sure about the other two sets.

[Jacob Orlove]

I think it's probably worth it to just go tempest/visions/saga/torment. Tempest and Visions both have a ridiculous number of playables, while Saga and Torment have insane black cards--both in quality and quantity (Torment is obviously black-heavy, but Saga has only two or three unplayable black cards). With that mix, you shouldn't have any trouble putting together a very good black/X deck, especially if you open Pestilence, which is a COMMON in saga. Pestilence should win enough games on its own that it's worth trying to open one.

[Nazdakka]

The black gambit certainly looks very strong to me. I'd also take a long, hard look at Darksteel for a third pack - you've got Chittering Rats, Grimclaw Bats, Echoing Decay, Essence Drain, Leonin Bola and the land-affinity golems all sitting at common, plus lots of tasty uncommons (Skullclamp, the under-rated Spawning Pit, Specter's Shroud, FIREBALL, etc.). Remember, all the artifacts are better than you think they are because there's much less availible hate for them when the boosters are random.

[doomhed]

your best combination for this format is

Darksteel
Torment
Legions
Tempest

Why legions? it is 15 creatures, making sure you will have enough playable dudes to fill your deck. there are many times not enough dudes in the darksteel packs to help you, and toment has very few low cost guys to play.