Draft all day, or a Draft disaster

Yesterday, after dropping off my Washington voter registration form in the mail (which I am told is useless because Washington is always overwhelmingly Democrat, regardless of who I vote for), I went to First Pick for their release event, which was 8-man drafts all day and a Sealed event.

I jumped into a draft and can't get away from GWU again. Round 1 I play Jesse. Game 1 is a blowout. Game 2 is close but with a Tar Fiend that wipes my hand (but me topdecking Excommunicate), and almost stabilizing but getting wrecked by Violent Ultimatum, I lose.

Game 3 I get a really fast start but I tap out with 3 guys on the board on my turn 4 to fetch a land and he Jund Charms my board. I didn't see Jund Charm Games 1 or 2 (and I saw a LOT of cards in those games), so I don't think it was unreasonable for me not to play around it. I lose. I don't think I made any mistakes that stick out in my mind.

Then I jump into a Sealed Deck that wasn't running the Shard restriction. Round 1 I play Joey and every game is a blow out and I win in 3. Round 2 I play BJ, Joey's father. Game 1 is close but he makes some mistakes and I win. Game 2 I don't remember much but I mulligan to 6 and he gets there. Game 3 was a blowout. The third and final round wasn't exciting, and I won.

I jump in another draft and draft WUB with 3 Sanctum Gargoyles, a Tower Gargoyle, and a couple of Etherium Sculptors. Round 1 I play against a weaker opponent and roll. Round 2 I play Jason and he blows me out with his bombs Prince of Thralls and Vein Drinker. His deck was just way too powerful and my deck too "fair" it seems.

I jump in one last draft and draft WUB again. I play Zaiem, one of a few people I kinda sorda knew when I arrived in Seattle, and while he hasn't played a lot of paper because he works in BFE (Tacoma), he's been very welcoming. Round 1 is very tight. I draw Agony Warp and make an attack planning to 2-for-1 toward the end game, but he has his own Agony Warp and 2-for-1's me instead. He said he didn't think that my attack and plan with Agony Warp was a mistake. Round 2 I blow him out, and Round 3 was another tight game, and toward the end game I have a Sanctum Gargoyle and he has a 1/1 3G Shroud guy that gets bigger when things hit the bin. He plays the 2B 3/1 Innocent Blood guy (which is amazing), and with 4 mana up, I Call to Heel my guy, but don't even consider agony Warping his 3/1 so that he has to sac his Shroud guy! That's just me not looking over all the cards in my hand and looking for all possible plays, similar to the Mercy Killing play I miss when a weaker player pumped to kill a fatty. I have no other way of dealing with that guy other than blocking, and he ends up going all the way.

Apart from learning how to draft this format, I need to get way more creative with my plays and find the amazing plays that steal wins against equal or better opponents. Beating the players I expect to beat will get me to .500 at a PTQ. I think I just need to play a lot more with the cards. Ugh, what a frustrating day.

I'm writing this on the way to Redmond for their release event. I initially was going to skip it since they were going to have the deck building restrictions, but I just need to play more... plus I want a little redemption by playing a weaker field. Need a little bit of confidence right now.