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Innistrad draft continues to be one of my favorite all time formats.  Draft in general is an interesting format, where you at times must evolve mid-draft and change your deck strategy based on what is getting passed to you, and what cards are opened in the packs.  Many times I open a strong rare and suddenly find nothing in the same color getting passed to me.  That is the decision time.  Do I pick terrible cards to stay in a color, or go in a completely different direction?  If it's pack one, you may get what you are looking for next pack.  If it doesn't come, you had better jump ship and get another color before you are left holding a pile of worthless cards.
Some things online are over drafted.  Green-white agro or blue-black zombies for instance.  Cards like Travel Preparations or Forbidden Alchemy push people down those paths.  Take a look at this pack, first pick of a draft.  What do you here?
  Pack 1 pick 1:




Do you go agro with the Reckless Waif ?  How about bigger and colorless agro with the Galvanic Juggernaut ?  Maybe you are a 'rare-drafter' and just windmill slam the rare card?  Then there is the Forbidden Alchemy I discussed above.  Let's face it, pack 1 pick 1, we are all 'forcing' a draft deck in our heads.  You take which direction you want to go, and it affects everyone else's decision in subsequent picks.  8 people could sit down on 2 different days with the same identical 3 packs in front of them and not end up at the same resulting deck.  Opinions on how important some cards are can change where you pick them in your next draft.
Begin aside...
In the Scars of Mirrodin limited format, I found myself opening Cerebral Eruption quite a bit, and at first thought it was a good card.  Maybe it is a good card.  Maybe it never was good.  All I know is that everytime I played it, I would hit a 1 mana costing card or a land, and have to pass the turn, staring down the same threats that my opponent had on the board before I cast it!  So I hated it, and overlooked it everytime I opened from then on.
End aside...
This draft I went in with the mind set that zombie mill is under drafted and there will be cards passed.  I see a lot of 7th pick Laboratory Maniac s also, and so I picked the Forbidden Alchemy to start my deck off right; it self mills 3 cards to find you that one 'must-have' card now.  As a matter of fact, by pick #5, I had 3 Forbidden Alchemy without passing anything else in blue or black of that deck type.  This does something for you very important in pack 2.  The people that you have been passing to will not be in those colors and you are more likely to get better choices of cards in your strategy since they will be passing to you.  Here is the deck that I built:
Maniac Zombie Mill
CREATURES
2 Armored Skaab
2 Brain Weevil
1 Daybreak Ranger
1 Ghoulraiser
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Makeshift Mauler
3 Rotting Fensnake
2 Unbreathing Horde
1 Walking Corpse
SPELLS
1 Curse of Stalked Prey
1 Spider Spawning
1 Gnaw to the Bone
2 Mulch
2 Forbidden Alchemy
1 Geistflame
1 Unburial Rites
LANDS
6 Swamp
1 Shimmering Grotto
1 Mountain
4 Forest
5 Island

Sideboard
1 Gnaw to the Bone
1 Desperate Ravings
1 Traveler's Amulet
1 Make a Wish
2 Festerhide Boar
1 Corpse Lunge
1 Naturalize
1 Disciple of Griselbrand
2 Woodland Sleuth
1 Stromkirk Patrol
1 Forbidden Alchemy
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Delver of Secrets
1 Thraben Sentry
1 Moonmist
1 Graveyard Shovel

I feel that Curse of Stalked Prey was once again me just trying to be too cute, and that should have been Deperate Ravings .  Of course red could have been cut altogether for the 3rd [card]Forbidden Alchemy[card] and 2nd Gnaw to the Bone .  3 colors would have been ambitious, 4 was just plain ridiculous, and it should have actually had a Plains as I needed to be sure I could flashback the Unburial Rites !
The lesson learned here, is that picking and playing how you want to should make you happy.  I had fun trying to build this deck from pick one.  It came together almost exactly as I wanted it to.  I might have lost in the first round, but I won a game, and had a ton of fun trying this deck out.  So next draft, go in with a plan, execute that plan, and have a blast!  Until next time.

TTFN!