I had the pleasure to meet Top8Magic listener Danny Gardner today. Danny had come from England to Berlin to try his hand at the LCQ on Friday. His Reveillark deck left him short of the mark with a 6-2-1 record but there was still plenty of Magic left to play.

Danny was playing in the Sealed PTQ and opened a pool that fell bombtastically along a Shard — Naya –with Realm Razer and Titanic Ultimatum. He was undefeated as of this picture taking.

Gavin Verhey ended up going 0-2 drop. “My pool was not very good.” Apparently his cards were mostly Grixis.

Gavin Verhey is one of three players at this event who I have been following in their efforts to qualify for Pro Tour Kyoto. Sam Stoddard and Gabe Carlton-Barnes had already locked up the neccessary number of ones to keep playing on Saturday but Gavin — playing in his first Pro Tour — needed to win against Paulo Carvalho to make it through.

I am sure the pressure was already bearing down on him before he heard his name being called to the Feature Match area. And if you want to really talk about pressure than you have to talk about the brutally fast All-in Red deck that Paulo was piloting.

Gavin’s deck was a Deathcloud build that could empty an opponent’s hand with the Raven’s Crime and Life from the Loam engine. “Its kind of like the Rock… Good against everything / bad against everything,” he said.

With only five basic lands Gavin was not able to get out from under a turn one Magus of the Moon and no Swamp in sight. In game two Gavin Thoughtsiezed a handful of Rituals and fell to a topdecked Empty the Warrens on Paulo’s turn one.

“Sigh,” said the young PTQ veteran. “What format is the qualifier tomorrow?”