I think my seat could've been either Orzhov or Gruul. I wound up opening Ethereal Absolution, Godless Shrine, and Teysa Karlov, but was also passed Gruul Spellbreaker and Ravager Wurm from my right, and there was plenty of support in Gruul otherwise as well, possibly more so than Orzhov. But. I don't think it's ever correct not to play Ethereal Absolution--it's a bomb on the level of Tetzimoc, Primal Death. So, I did wind up hedging between Orzhov and Gruul in the first pack, which felt extremely risky, and wound up basically with 50-50 between the two guilds. Pack 2 was the Godless Shrine and I decided to take it for the monetary value and see what came from the left. It seemed that Orzhov was more open than Gruul, so I solidified into Orzhov. Pack 3 was Teysa, so I took it as a sign that I should be in Orzhov (I had also heard that Orzhov was the deck to beat in this format, so I was kind of going to force it anyway since the guilds didn't seem balanced the one other draft I did).
This was an 8-person pod. The person to my left was in Temur, and the person to my right was in Bant, so I think I wound up being correct in sticking with Orzhov. I went 1-1-1 (3-4-1). Every time I played Ethereal Absolution, I won the game fairly easily. The card should never be passed; even if you open it in pack 3, I still believe it is worthwhile to splash for it. It's nigh-on unbeatable if they can't remove it, and if the opponent isn't in green or white, most likely they can't. That being said, I struggled to find the kind of card advantage that I know makes a functional limited deck; this environment is very strange to me, and it seems to lack the familiar generic elements found in most draft environments. I'll continue to draft to see if I can learn to adapt to this specific format, as I'm sure the exposure to novelty will help improve my limited game overall.
Some things I've noticed about this format
-Removal tends to be either extremely slow or extremely situational. I suffered with Undercity's Embrace as a removal spell in my deck; most times it was not very good, but I didn't really have anything better with which to replace it
-Tenth District Veteran is probably underrated. Giving my Noxious Groodion vigilance is kind of cool. I just wish I had been able to pick up an Arrester's Zeal during the draft, but an opportunity to do so never really came up.
-There have been suggestions that this is a "draw first" format. I've only done two drafts, but I haven't found this to be true. It can be grindy, but it certainly can also be brutally fast. I'm going to revert back to being on the play if I win the die roll instead of experimenting with drawing first, which is what I did tonight. I felt that being a step behind was far too big of a cost to pay for the card advantage.
