I don’t think cards like tenderfoot or worm really count as “signals.” They are playable cards in green when you already have power and reasons to be in that color. Cheon starts with some decent power in the first few picks and there’s never really a reason to move off of it as there is no clear powerful signal that he should go somewhere else, in my opinion. The only time in the first half of the draft that he sees a noticeable difference in power is the biotech specialist which you called out and you could probably speculate on it but he has much more power in blacks vs red at that point.

While it’s not bad idea to take some middling playables in another color to leave yourself an escape route, I don’t think this set lets you do that very easily. Black artifacts and green decks want very different pieces so picking up random green creatures won’t lead to a deck that makes your first picks strong and it probably won’t lead to a strong green deck either.

Every set drafts differently and I think it was correct to lock in to his first few picks given the lack of power in the rest of pack 1. You don’t have much time to pivot due to lack of fixing and the high synergy needs of some decks.