Drafting with Shards of Alara

I drafted Shards of Alara for the first time tonight at First Pick. The first deck I drafted was GWRb splashing for my first pick Broodmate Dragon. I messed up pack 2 pick 1 and picked a Rhox War Monk over a Court Archers, when I wasn't sure I wanted to dip into Blue. I still thought my deck was okay...

Round 1 I pretty much get blown out by a fast Exalted opening. I make a bad play holding Skeletonize in my hand. He has a Sigil Paladin, an Akrasan Squire, and the 1W 1/1 Exalted guy. I was already pretty low on life, so I pretty much wanted to Fog. For whatever reason, with this plan in mind, I tap down his 2/2 with Bant Battlemage. He sends in the 1/1 for 2, and the entire time I was thinking "Whoever he attacks with, I burn" and mindlessly point Skeletonize at it. Of course I don't read the freaking cards and he pays U to give that guy Shroud. Wowwww.... Game 2 I get mana screwed.

Round 2 Game 1 I curve out pretty nicely. Game 2 I get blown out thanks to mana, and Game 3 I also have weird mana and lose. I didn't think the mana was that bad, I'll post the deck tomorrow.

Luckily there were enough people who came late and enough 0-2 drops that we did an 8-man. My deck ended up terrible, starting out GWR again, but then switching over to Blue when in pack 2 pick 3 I saw a Stoic Angel staring at me. The guys weren't really coming to me, so I was picking bounce and whatever removal I could get, and I ended up with a deck with 13-14 creatures.

Round 1 I play someone who said he was just getting back into the game. I didn't think he was playing with very good cards, and I was doing what I could to stay in the game, but I couldn't deal with his fliers, no matter how poorly he was playing.

Round 2 I play against Tony, the judge who organized the draft extravaganza. Game 1 I blow him out. Game 2 I get him all the way to 1 with a cycled Resounding Thunder until he wipes the board with a Grixis Charm and we both a couple fatties, and he starts playing out his bombs. He really messes me up attacking with the Mythic Rare that takes guys that hit the bin unless I pay life, and I was considering scooping with the score 3-1, but I still draw and find the white Rhino guy that Hurricanes for 4G. I can't believe I was about to scoop. I made some pretty bad plays in this game: cycling Resounding Thunder to put him at 1 (although I could justify this by saying that waiting until he's at 6 doesn't let me take advantage of actually cycling, where cycling it and putting him at 1 digs me one card deeper to killing him), attacking with a Court Archers and a fatty while he's at 1 into 2 guys, with Court Archers getting chumped, where just attacking with the fatty would force him to chump and give up a card, and I'm sure tons of other things. I probably need to slow it down a little bit.

So in summary, I don't think I know how to draft this set. I don't know what comes late, what I need to pick early, and which among high picks are most valuable, where Sealed Deck I'm picking the 23rd and 24th cards. Good thing tomorrow First Pick is doing 8-mans all day, so I'll definitely be either going infinite, or wearing out my credit card. This must be what being a crack addict is like.

(I'll try to post decklists tomorrow at some point, if you haven't checked the timestamp, I'm writing this really really late.)