Live Coverage of StarCityGames.com Open Series: Boston

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A long season has come to a close! The 2010 StarCityGames.com Open Series has come to a regular season end, with only the StarCityGames.com Invitational left to play in December. The final champion of the series? James Rynkiewicz, but before his story is told we have others to cover.

First up, Alex Bertoncini. Alex seemed to have the Player of the Year race on lockdown headed into the weekend. His nearest competitor, Ben Wienburg, didn’t attend Boston meaning he was over 20 points ahead of the next nearest player. A host of them had longshot chances of overtaking him, but each needed an improbable win on Saturday with a strong performance on Sunday. Enter Dan Jordan. The StarCityGames.com Standard Open champ in Charlotte one weekend before Boston, Jordan came ready to play in Boston. He ripped through the Swiss field and found himself in the Finals. He managed to win, and all of a sudden the race was on! A guerrilla campaign to get players to concede to Dan on Sunday started by Gerry Thompson narrowly missed, and Jordan wound up finishing out of the Top 8. That meant Alex managed to clinch his title in order to become the first StarCityGames.com Open Player of the Year.

Thompson’s effort to unseat Bertoncini caused him no bad karma throughout the tournament Sunday. After an 0-2 start on Saturday he tore through all comers in the Legacy format. That set up a showdown between Gerry and James Rynkiewicz. For Thompson it was his THIRD time in the Finals of a StarCityGames.com Open event, but did he have what it took to finally win? He gave it his all, but ultimately James’ deck had the better draws and Thompson failed to pull out the victory. That means James Rynkiewicz is the 2010 StarCityGames.com Legacy Open champion in Boston!

We’ll see you in December for the StarCityGames.com Invitational!

Top 16 Legacy Decklists	By Bill Stark
Check out the Top 16 decklists from the StarCityGames.com Legacy Open in Boston!

Finals: Gerry Thompson vs. James Rynkiewicz	By Bill Stark
“I’ve got two 2nd place finishes,” Gerry Thompson pointed out as he sat down to the Finals one more time at the last StarCityGames.com Open event of the 2010 season.

Semifinals: Gerry Thompson vs. Rodney Hannigan	By Bill Stark
Gerry Thompson is a well known name amongst competitive Magic circles. The Pro Tour and Grand Prix star also has multiple StarCityGames.com Open Top 8s to his credit.

Quarterfinals: Jim Davis vs. Micah Greenbaum	By Bill Stark
Jim Davis is an East Coast star, having made numerous Top 8s and performing well on the Pro Tour.

Quarterfinals: Rodney Hannigan vs. Michael Melnick	By Bill Stark
A lucky Counterbalance flip had put Rodney Hannigan’s StifleNaught deck into the Top 8 of the StarCityGames.com Legacy Open in Boston.

Round 8: Asher Hecht vs. Rodney Hannigan	By Bill Stark
In the final round of Swiss, Asher Hecht, who had been featured in an early feature match, found himself playing for his tournament life against Rodney Hannigan.

Deck Tech: Reanimator with John Cuvelier	By Bill Stark
Reanimator is a classic Magic strategy, and for the first half of the 2010 StarCityGames.com Legacy Open season it was a dominant force.

6:48 – Alex Bertoncini, 2010 StarCityGames.com Open Series Player of the Year!	By Bill Stark
With no more events to award points this year and his nearest competitors locked out, that by default made Alex Bertoncini the highest scoring Open Points player and inherently crowned him the 2010 StarCityGames.com Player of the Year!

Deck Tech: Cherri0s with Marc Agel	By Bill Stark
A Glimpse of Nature combo featuring a host of zero mana casting cost creatures and Beastmaster Ascension.

Round 6: John Cuvelier vs. Jason Lundberg	By Bill Stark
A veteran of the StarCityGames.com Legacy Open Top 8, John Cuvelier sat down to face off against Jason Lundberg in the sixth round in Boston.

Deck Tech: Poison with Carl Godon	By Bill Stark
Poison, the method of death infect resurrected from the grave, has been around since the very beginning of the game but the powerful new method of taking someone down with it immediately drew the interest of deck builders around the world.

2:07 – Faces in the Crowd	By Bill Stark
Check out who showed up to the final StarCityGames.com Legacy Open of the year in Boston!

Round 2: Asher Hecht vs. Gerard Fabiano	By Bill Stark
Both members of the East Coast Magic elite Asher Hecht and Gerard Fabiano sat down to face one another in the second round of the StarCityGames.com Legacy Open in Boston.

Jordan Gets Another!	By Bill Stark
Dan Jordan claims his second consecutive StarCityGames.com Standard Open championship!

Top 16 Standard Decklists	By Bill Stark
Check out the Top 16 decklists from the StarCityGames.com Standard Open in Boston!

Finals: Laurence Swasey vs. Dan Jordan	By Bill Stark
Just one week removed from his StarCityGames.com Open title in Charlotte, Dan Jordan found himself back in the Finals in Boston.

Semifinals: Josh Herr vs. Dan Jordan	By Bill Stark
A week removed from claiming the title of Standard Open champion in Charlotte, Dan Jordan found himself back in the spotlight in the Semifinals of the StarCityGames.com Standard Open in Boston.

Quarterfinals: Caleb Durward vs. Matt Mulholland	By Bill Stark
This weekend the talk of the town is Monoblack Vampires, the very deck Caleb Durward had fought his way into the Top 8 with.

Quarterfinals: Michael Farrell vs. Josh Herr	By Bill Stark
Michael Farrell and Fai Littman sat down as the last match with a shot of making Top 8 at the StarCityGames.com Standard Open in Boston.

Round 10: Michael Farrell vs. Fai Littman	By Bill Stark
Michael Farrell and Fai Littman sat down as the last match with a shot of making Top 8 at the StarCityGames.com Standard Open in Boston.

7:39 – Big Changes for the StarCityGames.com Open Series	By Bill Stark
That’s right, the largest independently run tournament series in the world is returning for its second season in 2011!

Round 7: Matt Mulholland vs. John Rafael Mendoza	By Bill Stark
“This is only my…” John Rafael Mendoza replied, pausing while trying to recall something, “…second tournament ever?”

Quick Hits: What Do You Think of the 2011 Open Series?	By Bill Stark
We asked some of the best finishers in this year’s Open Series what they thought about the big changes in store for the 2011 Season.

Deck Tech: Vampires	By Bill Stark
We could be seeing the birth of a brand new archetype: Vampire Rush.

2:11 – Player of the Year	By Bill Stark
The StarCityGames.com Open Series Player of the Year race began with the very first event held in December of last year in St. Louis.

Round 3: Caleb Durward vs. Mike Bregoli	By Bill Stark
A member of Magic’s old school, Mike Bregoli is famous for being the force behind MiseTings.com, a faux-Onion style website that existed for a time at the dawn of Magic on the Internet.

11:24 – International Stage	By Bill Stark
The StarCityGames.com Open Series is the largest independently run tournament circuit in the United States. But it is not without international appeal.