Drafting assesments

This is to help with drafting skills/assesments. What would you pick and why. What advantage does your pick have over a pick of a different card? All picks will be assumed for 1st pack 1st pick unless otherwise specified.

Malakar Bloodwitch--Vampire nighthawk--shepard of the lost--quest for pure flame--trusty machete--quest for the gravelord--harrow--reckless scholar--kor hookmaster--narrow escape--into the roil--zendikar farguide--forest

First off there are only two cards I would seriously consider out of this pack, Nighthawk and machete. Malakar and Shepard are both good cards, but they are both a notch below the other two. The only removal in the pack is into the roil, which is decent, but nowhere near pick one material.

If you take the Nighthawk, then you are committing to heavy black because of the two colored mana cost and the fact that you want to cast it on turn 3 if possible. Also, passing the bloodwitch means that one of the drafters immediately after you will go into black. In order to make taking Nighthawk work I would start drafting black aggressively if at all possible. Black is the best color in Zendikar though, so this strategy could blow up if nothing good gets passed to you.

The other option is to take the machete and wait to see what comes your way. The first pack has no decent red, so if you get passed some it should be possible to claim that color and get decent cards passed back to you in pack two.

I would probably go with the nighthawk in this scenario. It's a bit riskier, but has the potential to lead to a more powerful deck.

P.S.
Aren't there two cards missing from that pack?

In this pack I actually went with the machete because I was afraid that black would be overdrafted (especially because it is the best color) and I was missing a shieldmate's blessing I think but isn't worth updating as I don't think anyone would pick that first pick anyway. It took me the whole time alloted to pick the machete as I knew that if I saw a nighthawk across the board that I'd be really frustrated for passing it but wasn't really going to commit to a color I knew most others would be trying to pull from. Thanks for the reply though.

see Im odd but I might have taken the harrow or roil.....the machete was also asolid pick as well but I prefer control so one of those would have been my pick.

Hellkite Charger-windborn charge-shepard of the lost-quest for the pure flame-kabira crossroads-shoal serpent-nissa's chosen-relic crush-spreading seas-noble vestige-burst lightning-bladetusk boar-umara raptor-disfigure-forest

Okay so this was the first pack I opened and was struggling because this was a good pack with a lot of different good cards that others might see as a signal if passed. Hellkite Charger comes down and should win the game in itself, shepard of the lost is the next pick that would be great here as most creatures cannot defend/attack well into it, bladetusk boar is evasive and a reasonable clock as well. Spell wise you have Burst lightning, disfigure and windborn charge; burst lightning is plain awesome as it can take down next to all creatures you'll run into early and late game can kill their bigger beats or even hit to the head as a finisher, disfigure although not as strong can help kill early threats or even create poor attacks by the opponent and windborn charge is basically the mini overrun in this format but is has the limitation of needing creatures (and the advantage in life totals) so it's situational. I eliminate the windborn charge and the bladetusk boar, the hellkite is awesome but with such a fast format I declined because you actually have to get to the late game and at that point it may be too late anyway. This leaves the Shephard, burst and disfigure....I chose the shepard b/c I felt i would be signaling red even if I took the burst simply b/c of the other cards and the disfigure was not enough for me to pass up a creature that has the ability to win the game on it's own and comes down early enough in the game.

hmm, i probably would have chosen the burst lightning over the shepherd. the only reason for this is that it is a early, mid or late game card that can cause a drastic change....the shepherd has that ability as well but the again, i like hearing my bro curse everytime i kill him with the burst