For obscure shows, I add all the torrents I can find, and keep them leeching for at least a day, and then keep only the one that seems to be fastest. Seed count is a little misleading, in that a torrent with 1 dedicated seedbox is often better than one with 10 regular seeds.

Of course there's no instant gratification - I've waited days/weeks for a show sometimes. You can prioritize files in watch order so that you don't need to wait for the entire torrent download to start watching.