Some tournaments deviate (slightly) from the normal tournament rules. Such house rules should in all cases be clearly announced; so read your tournament's announcement to find out. Some of the most common deviations are listed here for easy reference. These are not official rules: each of these rules is only in effect if the tournament announcement clearly states so.
Many find the limited means of sealed a special challenge and charm. Some find it a bit over the top and vividly remember drawing several factions and other resources they couldn't play because they didn't draw the matching sites. Therefore in some sealeds it is allowed to use all sites. A downsite is of course that the sites you do draw don't give you any advantage at all.
If you go to a sealed like this you should bring your location deck from home
if possible, for convenience. Not having a copy of your own with of each site
should not limit you though.
Another, probably more balanced way to enhance the sealed experience is to allow one proxy site; just one. Other than that you have to make do with what you draw.
When you are done making your deck you can choose one site and add it. This
site remains fixed for the tournament. Usually a proxy is made from a
superfluous region or site card.
It is widely believed that the Barlog, being the last set ICE introduced, is a bit too powerful and would have been rebalanced by new cards and errata by now, had ICE still been around to do so. Some players went over the set looking and found the ease with which the Balrog throws in fresh characters worth MPs and all the most disturbing. They suggest to limit the Balrog's ability to play characters from dicard pile or sideboard to characters with a maximum of two mind (instead of three mind). So the Balrog's rules on playing characters read like this:
• During his organization phase, a Balrog player may bring into play (and/or
remove from play) up to two characters – one of these characters must be
non-unique. The normal requirements for bringing into play (or removing from
play) a character must still be met.
• When a Balrog player brings into play a non-unique character with a mind of 2
or less, that character may come from his hand, his discard pile, or his
sideboard.
The suggestion is detailed here
on the forums. We'd appreciate it if you'd use that thread to share your
experiences with tournaments that used this rule.
These are just the most commonly used ones we're aware of. Many more are waiting for you to try them, comment on them and contribute to them on the optional rules forum. Some especially recommended ones are bundled in the UEP, as this introduction explains.