You make a good point that 5 packs should more balanced than 3.

The 5 packs was not to make it more balanced though (that is a side effect). It was supposed to be a slightly different format. Since all tournaments are 3 packs, we thought it was fair to have qualifiers be the same format of 3 packs.

i think it's fine as-is. Super Sealed is a special kind of sealed, and like you said, the qualifier should probably be like the default kind of sealed. The two aren't so different that one should be removed, so I think it's fine

maybye sealed can be improved by allowing everyone to choose 3 different commons next to the 24 sealed offered cards.

these commons should not be in the 24, and cannot be duplicates either.
this way everyone can get a few debuffs, enlists or movememnt buffs (but not alll of them)

My point is this: the qualifier should feel like a special kind of tournament. It should be longer. It should be more intense. It should be more balanced in card selection.

In a normal sealed tournament, which I'm not arguing should be changed (although I also wouldn't argue if it were), its very possible to catch a very bad deck when choosing amongst three packs, play 8 rounds, get slaughtered in that time by a superior deck, and your tournament is over. Ok, cool.

But in a qualifier, that only occurs once a week, where the prizes are larger, where you spent all week playing tournaments at various times to qualify, where you take special time out of your schedule to make this tournament time above any other, it should feel special. Making it double elimination or this mysterious swiss format I've heard so much about (but never seen) would make it feel special. Getting a larger selection of cards to pick from would make it feel special, just like it made the Super Sealed Grand Satellite feel special.

It's possible that I've mentioned before that I used to play a lot of online poker. When you would play in a bigger tournament, you would start with more chips and the blinds would go up slower. Getting more chips is the equivilant of getting more cards, because it gives you more to work with. The blinds going up slower is similar to double-elimination or swiss format, because the average game for a player will last longer (when the blinds get high in poker you are forced to commit your chips before you may want to). This made these tournaments feel bigger, aside from the larger prizes. You would know when you woke up early Saturday morning that you had a tournament with high stakes which was going to be a marathon. This doesn't have to be a marathon in the sense of hours, but it needs to be longer than one and done, when games are often very quick.

Thanks for listening!