The first one I read was Mistborn - it was very well-executed and had a ton of cool ideas and epic fantasy deconstructions! My problem was I just never connected to Vin (? the female protagonist?), which was a me problem and not an issue with the book! But I agree, he does EXTREMELY neat things (especially tactically) with his magic systems. I keep thinking I should actually go read the Sanderson completion of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time because what I kept hearing from WoT fans was that he had basically done REALLY cool, inventive, logical things with WoT's magic system that were just sitting there but Jordan had never had his characters exploit. Jordan had a number of strengths but weaponized tactical magic was not actually one of them. XD

I did like Sanderson's later Alloy of Steel, and again, this time it was because I connected better with the characters. XD I got a little way into his first YA sf book and was enjoying that but read too slowly and had to return it to the library - someday I'll get it back out.