To win good tournaments with good prize pools you will absolutely need patience. Starting off hot almost all the time is great, its because most of your loose players are still in and you can get them to put in their money bad - take advantage of that and run your stack up while you can without getting too crazy.
I know ALOT of people will tell you be careful and play cautious - i agree to some extend but if you are sitting there all day long waiting for the top 15% of
hands you are going to miss out on some good sized pots. I start off aggressive and i constantly switch gears in these things. I either start off building a big stack or im done early.
I feel like to do well in any MTT you need to amass chips early so as the blind structure goes up you arnt sitting there looking to make a move with the rest of the field. I feel like this happens around levels 6 - 8 and of course more as they get higher. A bigger stack gives you the freedom to pick and choose your battles in that spot - and especially in
freerolls of i know my player HAS to make a move, and its only costing me 15% if my stack or less, i call them light alot. Hands like QJ, 9-10, 78s, 44 or better, etc. I call with to try and knock them out, hands i would never call a tight opponent with in a higher buy in event. Anyhow, you would be surprised how many chips you can pick up like that and it gives an image to your table that you are calling down pretty light so chances are if you're betting you have something.
Anyhow, enough rambling lol i think a good mixed strategy between playing smart and some controlled aggression is by far the best MTT strategy to run deep. Good luck to you at the tables