"O-Ren Ishii: Your instrument is quite impressive. Where was it made?

Welcome back sports fans!

Wanna win?

Sure you do. Then follow me down the rabbit hole!

The deck I designed and played at World Championships is the best deck in Standard!

That's quite a statement. Yet I believe it to be true.

Without further ado, here is your listing:

Hattori Hanzo Tron
(The reporters insisted on calling in U/R/b Tron. We called it Hattori Hanzo Tron, but few seemed to understand the reference, or care. Bah! Humbug!)

Hattori Hanzo Tron Featured by Michael Nurse on 2005-12-25 (Standard) As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/11014.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Artifacts 3 Dimir Signet Enchantments 2 Confiscate Instants 3 Hinder 4 Mana Leak 4 Telling Time	Legendary Creatures 4 Keiga, the Tide Star 4 Meloku the Clouded Mirror Sorceries 2 Blaze 4 Compulsive Research 4 Pyroclasm 2 Tidings Basic Lands 3 Island Lands 1 Forbidden Orchard 4 Shivan Reef 2 Tendo Ice Bridge 4 Urza's Mine 4 Urza's Power Plant 4 Urza's Tower 1 Watery Grave Legendary Lands 1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge	Sideboard: 1 Dimir Signet 1 Orochi Hatchery 3 Pithing Needle 1 Confiscate 1 Hinder 3 Cranial Extraction 4 Ribbons of Night 1 Tidings
Download this deck in Apprentice format!		Download this deck in Magic Online Text format!

What a pile of random garbage!

That is what you are thinking, right?

Right?

The obvious weaknesses include a completely dodgy mana base, nothing to do with Urzatron once its assembled (other than cast multiple spells a turn), weird card choices and no maindeck way of dealing with ubiquitous Umezawa's Jitte. Most of its card drawing is sorcery speed and the mana curve is better described as marginally acceptable in Mercadian Masques sealed deck.

The above paragraph is pure communist propaganda. Do not believe it. Just reading little bits of it could cause you to get colon cancer. It is written by those who cannot see beyond what is immediately obvious - a.k.a. shortsighted, superstitious and the unwashed masses.

Here are its tested matchup percentages (admittedly mostly pre-boarding). I don't kept detailed logs of games but we tested a real lot of games and agreed these overall percentages. They were tested by switching decks between players and by good players.

Jushi Blue / (Bob the Builder) 70% (65%?)
WW/r or WW/x 70%
Traditional Gifts decks 100%
Japanese Ghaziglare Decks ? Unknown - we lost 1/1 at Worlds with really bad draws. I estimate it at 60% favorable. Do your own testing.
Aggro Rock 60%

This is to say it's a 5-1 deck against the any given field!

Whoa tiger! (And, no I did not smoke my socks while writing the above).

Prove it, I hear you all chime in unison. Prove it!

The Pedigree
I believe the deck performed better on average than any other archetype (played by three or more players) on Day 1 at Worlds (6-0, 4-2, 2,4). An average performance of 4-2 (I concede this that I have not bothered to prove the win % of all other decks scientifically, but I am confident I should be right here nevertheless). The reasons for the losses included two play errors, three matches with severe mana issues and one bad matchup (deck with so many Ninjas Bruce Lee would have expired unceremoniously). Let's relook this deck in detail.

The History
I pretty much just jotted the deck down before even Ravnica was on spoiler. It tested about two games and came up with a version that was similar to the final version (no Blaze and with Threads of Disloyalty main). I showed it to my Worlds teammates and had to convince them against their gauntlets about the deck's ability. We did a couple of days of heavy testing to be comfortable with the final version and sideboarding strategies.

Why does it win?
Two reasons. Urzatron and Pyroclasm. The rest of the deck is for decoration. Let me elaborate. The are broadly speaking two types of decks in Standard. Control decks and creature-based decks. Control decks are beaten by assembling the Urzatron and playing more stuff in a turn than they can deal with, and by out drawing them. Creature decks are beaten by stalling them long enough to get to 5 or 6 mana. Pyroclasm (and Mana Leak) are key for this. No current deck can rush you more than 50% of the time if you play these two cards.

Beating Control Decks
Jushi Blue
You play the deck like this: The objective is to let the game go on as long as possible so that you can assemble Urzatron. Winning from there is easy. On any turn where your opponent cannot reach five mana next turn, it is safe to tap out. After that you always should leave two Blue and a colorless untapped to prevent the Boomerang on your Island followed by Meloku the Clouded Mirror. If they play Jushi Apprentice and you don't counter or kill it, it's not a big deal - just keep drawing cards, playing threats and you should win anyway, as they can't afford the mana investment on top of countering your stuff. The objective is to get the game to a situation where both players have a bunch of cards in hand and no threats in play and use just use the Urzatron to play multiple threats and counters in one turn. Remember, you have far more threats in your deck. Remember, they pack an Ink Eyes, Servant of the Oni after boarding so be careful with your Forbidden Orchard please. Don't be afraid to just use your Mana Leaks to make them tap out or to low mana. Never drop a dragon if you already have Meloku out, as he will drop his Keiga and steal your Meloku, as active player's triggers go on the stack first.

Out: 2 Keiga, the Tide Star, 2 Telling Time

In: 1 Tidings (0 on the draw), 1 Orochi Hatchery (they bring in Cranial Extraction), 2 Pithing Needle (3 if you are on the draw).)

Bob the Builder update:
This deck was "tech" at Worlds so we did not test it before the event. We did win 2 out 2 matches played against it. This deck is much worse for you than plain Jushi Blue because of Bob himself and the Jittes. I can only suggest swapping the Ribbons of Night in the sideboard for Threads of Disloyalty. I still believe that the matchup is in your favor, though less so than versus old school Jushi Blue.

Gifts Ungiven
It's easy. Counter his threats and draw cards. Watch out for sneaky tricks™ (eg. Ghost-Lit Stalker) and the time limit. Counter Gifts Ungiven if given (sic) the chance. Remember, they cannot stop Blaze. Blaze you for 20? Pow!

**An aside - you can make cool sound effects when playing this deck - be sure to make power-up noises (kinda like Voooop! when you assemble Urzatron or a kind of furnace style-whoosh as you Pyroclasm away four small creatures. Only do this if it looks like you are winning though - otherwise you will just look like an arse.
End aside.**

Out: 4 Pyroclasm, 1 Keiga, the Tide Star, 1 Meloku the Clouded Mirror, 2 Telling Time

In: 1 Tidings, 1 Hinder, 2 Cranial Extraction (for Gifts Ungiven and Putrefy), 2 Pithing Needle (Sensei's Divining Top and Ghost Lit Stalker), 1 Orochi Hatchery

Decks with Yosei, the Morning Star
As the prevalence of these decks was somewhat unexpected, we never tested against them. It still looks good on paper to me as counters, card draw, Cranial Extractions and Pithing Needles are fairly good at dealing with the dragon and Greater Good after boarding. For the Coup de Grace Confiscate their Greater Good, sacrifice Keiga, the Tide Star to it and use it to steal his Yosei, the Morning Star and in turn sac it to the Greater Good. Draw some cards too, while you at it.

Beating Creature Decks
Let us first examine our weapons of choice. Pyroclasm, Meloku the Clouded Mirror (of victory), Keiga, the Porn Star ably assisted by a supporting cast of Mana Leak and quick (and lucky) Urzatron assembly. This all works well enough with no Umezawa's Jitte on the board. Once that card comes down use Confiscate to deal with the mighty Umezawa's Jitte. (This works better than you would think, as they generally can't unequip it due to lack of creatures). After boarding there is Pithing Needle and Ribbons of Night too.

WW/r
We did a boatload of testing against these decks. You need to practice against them a bit but just by using your weapons above, you beat them more often than not. Most games lost preboarding are as a result of a Umezawa's Jitte (God, this card is ridiculous if no one else has mentioned this) or really bad draws. Board in Pithing Needle, Ribbons of Night and a bit of good luck. Side out 2 Confiscates, 2 Tidings, 2 Blaze and 2 Hinders. Bring in the extra Dimir Signet.

Gnarled Mass type decks
Not a lot to say here. Watch out for Arashi, the Sky Asunder and make sure you deal with Vinelasher Kudzu. Bring in Pithing Needle and Threads of Disloyalty (if you change your board, which I recommend you do).

Aggro Rock decks
See WW/r above. Be wary of Ink-Eyes, Servant of the Oni. They will bring in Persecute after boarding. Maybe Cranial Extraction too.

Losing
As a general rule, I suggest you don't try this without the supervision of an adult. Still it could happen. It generally happens when you have no Blue (or only Tendo, the Ice Bridge / Forbidden Orchard) or your mix of spells is all expensive threats or all cheap counters and Pyroclasms. You need to take chances to win with this deck, and if they don't pay off it will feel like the deck did nothing. Playing this deck is like going all in every game - if you don't have the guts for it, play something more consistent and less powerful instead. Having the wrong risk attitude with this deck can affect performance accordingly. Learning to mulligan like Kai helps too.

Metagaming
This deck has a lot of room for extra cards. In my opinion the core of the spells in the deck (in order of importance) is

4 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
4 Pyroclasm
4 Mana Leak
3 Keiga, the Tide Star
4 Compulsive Research
2 Blaze
1 Confiscate

That's 20 spells. You must play Pithing Needle in the board. The rest of the deck can be configured to your taste or needs. There are plenty of options for the remaining slots. Always consider that the deck needs the right mix of cards that stall your opponent and big bomb style threats. I don't recommend dropping Urza lands to nine, as we tested this and the deck really stank after that maneuver.

Other cards to consider: More Blazes, Threads of Disloyalty, Remand, Nightmare Void, Evacuation, Darkblast, Jushi Apprentice, Consuming Vortex, Sift, Flashfires, Boiling Seas (Cheeky), Clone (kills Legends including Kodama of the North Tree), Overwhelming Intellect, Umezawa's Jitte, Godo, Bandit Warlord and many more.

To Infinity and Beyond
This deck got the all the wrong guilds in Ravnica. It really needed the Izzet guild (Red and Blue). My understanding based on a spoiler is it (Izzet! Ha ha!) is expected arrive in Guildpact. This will give the deck the mana base it needs, and hopefully a couple of spells too. If the deck becomes a regular metagame feature (and it should) it could start to feel the pain from hate like Genju of the Spires, Sowing Salt or Ninjas.dec. In the mean time, go kick some ass!

"O-Ren Ishii: [semi-decapitated] That really was a Hattori Hanzo sword!
[she dies]
[ music plays]"