FIRST: WHICH COLORS TO PLAY

I separate the spells into colors, then go through and pull out the spells that I know are good (you get a feel for it after you've played sealed deck enough, like I ). I put all the extras into a pile by the side. I then look through my colors, and usually there are two colors which are really good and two colors that are okay. I lay out those two colors in two piles each, creatures and other spells, and add any good artifacts. I look for what I am missing: direct damage, removal, low/medium/large casting cost creatures, evasion creatures, etc. For example, if my two strong colors are red/green, you can probably bet that I will be looking at the black for removal and the white and blue for evasion creatures as I'll likely already have a good balance of ground creatures in a range of sizes and casting costs.

If I have two colors that are both pretty good support (3rd) colors, I'll do a one-by-one comparison to make my decision, such as:

I'll also check and see if there are good and bad combinations between my strong colors and my 3rd color (such as a Cloudchaser Eagle in white as a potential 3rd color and really strong enchantments in my primary colors).

In this particular deck, the blue and green were really bad, so the colors were easy to decide on.

SECOND (NARROWING IT DOWN): REMOVAL AND DIRECT DAMAGE (6)

Importance - Removal and direct damage are the first aspects of a deck that I look at. If I'm drafting, I'll almost always take removal or direct damage over a great creature. In this deck, I have 6 forms of removal (counting direct damage as well). This is excellent. As I like to save the Rolling Thunder and Fanning the Flames for Direct Damage, the Fevered Convulsions becomes my favorite removal in the deck. The Deadshot is also attractive because it can help serve a beatdown by taking out one creature and tapping the other. This deck does have an unusually high amount of direct damage. The Sonic Burst is a nice low-casting cost finisher, but doesn't always team up well with a Fan. To use the Sonic Burst without discarding the Fan, you would need at least 7 mana and one other card in hand: 5 mana to cast a Fan for 0 with buyback, and then two mana for the Sonic Burst and discard the other card in response.

Mana - The Fan, Rolling Thunder, and Fevered Convulsions are all mana - intensive. It means that the deck has to be heavy on red with strong black as well. This relegates white to the backup color (which makes the Exalted Dragon a quandary).

THIRD: CREATURES (14)

Importance - I like to class the creatures into categories when analyzing a sealed deck: Evasion, Speed, Utility, Fat, and Defense, with consideration for a creature's drawback.

• Evasion & Defense - I love having a deck with good evasion abilities such as Shadow and Flying. If you can combine this with some ground defense, you're way ahead of the game. In this deck, there are 4 creatures with evasion: two with Flying and two with Shadow. The Soltari Crusader and the Dauthi Jackal are nice, fast Shadow creatures, and the Jackal has an ability that might just come in handy. This teams well with the Standing Troops and Wall of Diffusion for defense. Later, you drop the Angelic Protector and it starts to do its job, then you drop the fat Exalted Dragon. There are only a couple of things in Rath Cycle that can kill it.
• Fast & Fat - You want to have a bunch of creatures that can come out fast along with some creatures that are fat to back them up later. This deck has only 1 two casting cost creature (which leaves me vulnerable in the early game), 7 small three casting cost creatures, 3 medium sized creatures, 2 top-heavy fat creatures, and one genuinely FAT 5/5 creature. There are two creatures that are versatile and can be made larger by discarding a creature card from your hand - the Mind Maggots (on casting) and the Vampire Hounds, which makes for good threat value.
• Utility - In this deck you have two good utility creatures, the Coffin Queen and the Corrupting Licid. If you can get the Coffin Queen working, you will have creature mastery over your opponent. The Corrupting Licid is another one of those cards that can be a Game Winner by making creatures unblockable.

Mana - The Crusader's pump ability is almost a waste with the low white mana in the deck. I've always been one to take chances though. Here is the mana curve for this deck:

What this means is that I need all three colors early as I have equal numbers in the 2 casting cost column. This is something that Kurt Burgner always bugs me about. He says that the decks I build have bad mana balances and the way I would build this deck is a good example. If I have 7 red mana and 5 white mana, I'm probably going to get my red mana early. However, there is a good chance that I won't get the white early, and be left with a Standing Troops or Hero's Resolve in my hand. That is why the Soltari Priest and the Youthful Knight, no matter how much I like them, are not in the main deck. I have nothing that costs 1, and not very many two casting cost items either. On the up side, the deck isn't ridiculously top-heavy in spite of the lack of lower casting cost spells. There is only one spell in the 5-6 casting cost bracket as well as two X spells that need 5+ mana to be effective.

FOURTH: GAME STRATEGY

Later in the game I will need red mana to cast the Rolling Thunder and/or the Fan. These two cards are simply too important to shirk on red mana, so I have included 7. I have 22 spells and 18 land.

Reset Button - The only reset button in this sealed deck is the Spontaneous Combustion for creatures, but I have never liked Spontaneous Combustion and so I did not include it. It can easily be sideboarded in, however.

Game Winners - Kurt taught me that you should always ask yourself: what do I have in this deck that can win the game? This deck is heavy on high-casting cost spells that can win you the game, such as the Rolling Thunder and the Fanning The Flames. You also have some nice tricks like the Licid and the Coffin Queen. A key card in helping this deck's purpose is the Ensnaring Bridge, something I originally overlooked. Remember that your goal with this deck is to stall long enough to get your direct damage working. As Kurt pointed out, the Bridge is perfect for that, so make sure during your games that you empty your hand as fast as possible, and when the Bridge hits the table, your opponent's game is effectively shut down. Your defensive (and hopefully early game) Standing Troops and Wall of Diffusion will help hold off your opponent's creatures.

COMMENTS FROM KURT BURGNER

I looked at your sealed deck analysis. It was pretty good. Obviously the colors pretty much picked themselves, with green and blue both being amazingly bad. The deck actually looked really good. Optimally, you would like to play something like 8 mountains, 7 swamps, 3 plains and ditch the white spells. But that won't happen with only 4 of each land. Playing 7/6/5 is pretty much your only choice. If you want to minor in white, your deck as made is about right, with the Dragon probably making the cut. I might play the Youthful Knight solely because I have no turn 1 or 2 plays except for a wall. the other choice is to play 8/6/4 land with black being your minor color. If you look at your black, you really have some decent creatures, two good creatures (Coffin Queen and Vampire Hounds) and Convulsions. You could possibly not play Convulsions and just play black for Cannibalize and your 3cc critters, allowing you better access to white and red mana. this would let you play the Dragon/Knight/Soltari Priest as well as the Lowland Giant.

(And his initial response, which prompted me to add Ensnaring Bridge in place of the Puppet Strings)
The only card that you overlooked is Ensnaring Bridge. I have never had this card, but it is definatly a must play card. It is immensly powerful, as it lets you totally control the game play. Obviously, you can combo Fan and Bridge to win some games, but at the simplest level you can simply play down to one card, draw one, attack with a 2 power shadow or flyer, and then play a card. What will your opponent do in response? Hit you with some Bayou Dragonflies? It can also let you stall a game out till you can simply Thunder and then Fan your opponent to death. Turn 3 Bridge, play all your junk, get to like 15 land and X them out. Definately a must play card.

POTENTIAL USE AS SIDEBOARD