I wouldn't recommend taking out your Archetype of Endurance never underestimate the value of hexproof, especially when it's given to all of your creatures, and you're running a creature deck. If you're going to run an etb deck you're going to want Conjurer's Closet $0.59 TCG mid.
It's not as versatile as Cloudshift (dodging a spell before you get archetype) however it allows you to abuse ETB every turn.
If you're going to go with ETB Avenger of Zendikar with Craterhoof Behemoth would be ideal since they're both 5/5's and would tutor each other, and have great synergy with the ETB/token/BFM strategy (assuming you decide to run Wild Pair).
However they're both expensive being, $5.56 and $10.66 TCG mid.
Decent replacements at a cheaper cost would be, Hornet Queen (preorder at $1.52 TCG mid ship on July 18), and Sylvan Primordial $0.82 TCG Mid. Hornet Queen Will give you tons of deathtouch blockers with flying, and Sylvan Primordial will give you some field control (land destruction if you play that way) while tutoring out all of your land, to increase your mana base while making sure you wont top deck land when you need a creature.
I know mana cost looks like it could be a problem, but playing with the wall mana ramp will ramp your mana base very quickly.
I completely forgot about this creature until just a moment ago Axebane Guardian has a CMC 1 more than Overgrown Battlement however it's cheaper TCG mid $0.15 and gives you mana of any color making managing a 2 color deck a little easier.
If it runs right turn 1 land, turn 2 land Overgrown Battlement turn 3 land Axebane Guardian, Overgrown Battlement, turn 4 you can play any card in your deck 2 of most of them. You could drop Wild Pair and Armada Wurm to attack for 20 trample turn 5, if you're really lucky and you've got it in your hand you could even castCloudshift on one of the Armada Wurms turn 4 with your 1 leftover white mana from Axebane Guardian or white land, dropping a third 5/5 trample token, to swing for 25 trample turn 5.
Conjurer's Closet looks like it's pretty much entirely better than the Flickerform I was looking at. It'll definitely go in instead. Including the Archetype would be nice too but I'm not sure what I'd get rid of for it.
Avenger of Zendikar and Craterhoof Behemoth are unfortunately way out of my price range. A set of those Behemoths would be more than the entire rest of the deck cost. Maybe someday though. Sylvan Primordial might be worth using though. It's another case of not being sure what I should switch out for it though.
Mana costs with my current list definitely don't seem to be a problem so far though. I've been testing stuff in Cockatrice tonight and between the Borderland Rangers and Overgrown Battlements I almost never seem to have a problem getting the Wurms out by turn 5 or 6 with the potential for it to happen turn 4.
I wouldn't use Rebuke it's simply not as good as Prey Upon you're going to run into situations where you need to kill the creature and it's not attacking, or you need to get through on your turn. Running three Oblivion Rings means your likely to draw 1, maybe 2. That's just not enough removal, especially if you play multiplayer. Wild Pair Is a great card I wouldn't run 4 though, your going to be mad when you have one on the field, need a creature to swing the state of the game and draw a second, I would run 3. Thragtusk Is a great card and makes a great addition to this deck especially with you running Conjurer's Closet Sylvan Primordial Great card, I wouldn't run him in place of Hornet Queen though. She puts out 4 1/1 flying deathtough creatures everytime you activate her ETB. Combine Prey Upon with one of those 1/1 you can kill a creature of any size at the cost of a chump blocker, that you can replace at end of turn.
I would
Drop 4 [cardRebuke[/card] and replace it with Prey Upon
Drop 1 Wild Pair and 1 Thragtusk for 2 [/card]Hornet Queen[/card] You can tutor her with Borderland Ranger and Overgrown Battlement your going to need defense against flying, and she interacts well with the deck design. If you're not comfortable taking out a Wild Pair since it's a cornerstone for this deck, take out a Citanul Flute you likely wont miss it too much. Archetype of Endurance is the hard one... There wont be any synergy with the other creatures and Wild Pair. But you really need the defense for your creatures.
I was going to put Rebuke in there solely because one of the guys I play with has on more than one occasion made one of his infect creatures unblockable then brought it up to 10+ power and won in the first 3 or 4 turns. I suppose it might just come down to swapping out Prey Upon for something like Rebuke when I play him.
I agree about Wild Pair, I generally try not to put in 4 of any cards that don't really do anything on their own.
If you're going to side deck specifically for that deck Pitfall Trap is better than Rebuke, that style of deck generally only attack with 1 creature at a time.
wow this deck is looking more and more fun. Thou i think the deck might need more early creature drops. I can see Garruk's Packleader as the only creature worth dropping. Alternatives could be Elvish visionary for cantrips, Fierce empath as an early tutor. You could also get gatecreeper vine for more defender ramp, or Axebane guardian also for more ramp up, I also noticed flyers might be a problem early game so maybe a wall of tanglecord.
It seems to do well enough with early creatures. An Overgrown Battlement can get played turn 2 which will give enough mana for a Wall of Reverence turn 3 which in turn means the ability to drop any other creature except the Archetype turn 4. Hell, if you start off with multiple Overgrown Battlement you can have 13 mana available turn 4 and play multiple high cost cards while having 0/4 defenders on the field turns 2 and 3. Otherwise you can just play a Borderland Ranger so you're not missing land drops while getting a 2/2 on the board that you can also cloudshift early on to tutor more land. That's 10 creatures that can go on the board in the first few turns pretty often.
It also has a ton of life gain between Wall of Reverence and Thragtusk so I think taking a few early hits will be recoverable.
Vampire Nighthawk is just a good value card for black, just an all-round tempo card, makes them swing less, and gives u more time to win.
Not sure u actaully need the 1 drop deathtouch creature.
Having been a long time fan of LoTR I love me some Freefolk. Is it possible to build a deck for casual, non-tournament play based around Treefolk for less than 130 Dollars? I want something that comes out hitting hard and fast, and that doesn't break the bank. Any list suggestions?
Try this one. Whole deck is valued around 85$ on blackborder.com, but I can't tell you exactly how much you'd have to invest since some online shop may be cheaper than Blackborder.
This is what threw together. You could replace some of the creatures for more ramp like Nature's Lore or Wild Growth but I opted for less noncreature spells to use Heartwood Storyteller. If you wanted a little bit more ramp to run more expensive treefolk like Woodfall Primus, take out the Heartwood Storytellers, add more ramp and probably use Harmonize for card draw instead.
Dude! Please Learn How to Autocard!: To Autocard individual cards type [Card*]Into the Maw of Hell[/Card*] and remove the asterisks to get Into the Maw of Hell or Stuffy Doll. Ta-Da! Autocarded!
When Autocarding a deck, type:
[Deck*]
Creatures: 1
4 Little Girl
Other Creatures: 1
4 Phyrexian Obliterator
[/Deck*]
Yay! Now people are actually look at your decklist properly and help you improve it! Excellent! You can tell that I love exclamation marks!
1. Try to run playsets of cards (meaning 4 of a card). This way your deck will win more consistently and you will draw your better cards more often.
2. Make sure to focus your deck on one single idea that can win you the game and make sure all the cards in your deck contribute to that idea. You have a limited number of cards so make sure all of them count. For example, your deck could be a Elf Tribal deck, an Aggro aggressive deck or maybe a Control deck.
3. Card advantage is very important. You need to understand that cards the draw you more cards are extremely helpful. The more cards you have in your hand the more options you have. With more options you have a greater chance at winning the game.
4. Removal is also quite important. Most decks more or less should run at least some removal.
5. Last but not least, make sure your deck is exactly 60 cards! Even 61 is not acceptable. Good luck in deck building!
Frozen Æther - Can be used to keep your opponents lands coming into play tapped. Dream Tides - Combined with Winter orb and Frozen Æther to completely lock down your opponents, at best your opponents will only get an attack in with a creature every two turns. Sol Ring - Ramp and it will allow you to keep mana available. Khalni Gem - Ramp and colored mana, also allows you to return a land so that you can play it again and it will be untapped. Chimeric Staff - Creature that bypasses Dream Tides and can become a larger creature as the game goes on.
Hi there I'm a noob. I discovered Magic on the release of M15, I had no knowledge of it before, so outside M15 it's all a bit of a mystery.
I want to build a white deck. For casual play, that could be altered to Standard with out too much change.
I like to use Ajani's Pridemate, along with some life gaining cards, ie Sungrace Pegasus, Soul's Warden, Souls Attendant, Paragon Of New Dawns...I guess you see where I'm going with this. I'd like some more fliers in there too if possible.
I've done a bit of research, hence the Soul Sister's but I'm unsure what else to run as my deck is pretty good if the cards combine otherwise I get taken out fairly easily with larger creatures and spells. If I don't get my lands out then I can't get out my 3/4 drop creatures and then it's a case of just waiting to die.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated, especially on specialised lands (do I need them with mono-white).
Thanks for the reply. After reading around & (thanks for the link) I see that my question is noobish.
I'm guessing I need a modern deck based around The Soul Sisters. I'm currently moving cards in and out of 2 decks plus some xtras. I know there is a good deck in their somewhere, but every time I put something in/take out it seems to get broken in a different way.
I want to play standard too but imagine this will need a drastically different deck?
The thing about playing standard is that typically you play drafts and use the cards you collect from the drafts to build your FNM constructed deck. I've never played standard outside of a few drafts, and prereleases, just too expensive for my taste since it rotates so often. If you go to "gatherer.wizards.com" you can have it filter for standard cards, which will help you decide what kind of standard deck you're going to want. You're actually getting into magic at an interesting time, Khans will be coming out shortly and it will be the first ever wedge set.
As far as the decks that you're working on man, it's always difficult to make sure you have the proper balance, the easiest way is to see what you're going to play against, and adjust for that. If you're playing and creatures are a big problem then you'll need removal, if you just can't seem to get your creatures to stay on the field then you need recursion, protection, or more resilient creatures, this is also where your sideboard comes in. Say you've got your deck built to where you want it to be at, but it has a lot of difficulty against RDW (Red Deck Wins) and you're running into them quite often. Dragon's Claw is a pretty good card for playing against a RDW but it's completely useless when playing against most every other deck. You don't want it in your main 60 cards because it will be a dead card in hand when you aren't playing against RDW so you throw a few into your sideboard specifically for RDW.
You don't want to sideboard too heavily against RDW though, because that wont be the only deck you're going to run into, and it likely wont be the only deck you have difficulty with. Try to find things that will work well against more than one deck that you have trouble with. Fiendslayer Paladin for example, is an easy addition to a Soul Sisters deck, 2/2 first strike, lifelink, with a built in protection against Red and Black removal for 3 mana is a great card. Maybe this isn't a main 60 because there are other cards that work better, (Never built or played Soul Sisters may be main 60 worthy) but it should be considered for sideboard if not main 60 because of it's usefulness against multiple builds making it strictly better than Dragon's Claw but not as good against RDW as Dragon's Claw.
Be careful with your selections, even when a card looks awesome (Hallow) it can be horrible to use, and to sideboard because of its limited applications. On the other hand, there are cards that don't seem very good at first (Cloudshift) glance but are actually extremely useful and rarely end up being a dead card in hand.
There are also cards that are often amazingly good cards in every deck but the one you're running. Wrath of God for example is a really good card that a lot of decks run, in a Soul Sisters deck though, it would be a bad choice, because of your reliance on creatures.
Building a deck is one of the most difficult things to learn how to do, but it can also be one of the most fun and rewarding things to do. It's awesome to think it through, study the cards, look for the interactions, gather the cards, and finally put it all together and see all of the thought and work come together.
No matter what you do, or how much you test and study other decks, you will never be able to build a deck that is good against everything and fun to play, play against.
I'm looking for a Blue/Green deck to play. Not sure exactly what I want but I wanted to involve some Elves into it if possible. I am even considering going Blue/Green/White
I have a junk rare that I really like - Eye of the Storm - but I can't seem to find a good way to play it. My last attempt was an Izzet deck with the goal being to use Eye of the Storm and Pyromancer Ascension to create infinite Grapeshots. I also threw in some bounce and some Brain Freezes. It was really fun, but I never had enough time to go off. Think you could make something out of it? I play casual, so no format/set restrictions. As for budget, if you can do it for less than $100, that would be great but I'm not opposed to spending a little extra. It doesn't have to be consistent, it just has to be fast. You don't have zero in on damage either. The whole point of the deck was to cause as much chaos as possible and watch the look on their face when everything (including my stuff) got blown to pieces.
I was wondering what could be done (very casual - though my group does "typically" stick to Modern) with the inspired mechanic in U/B. I bought 2 of the intro packs and want to turn them into a fun deck, and need some help. Thanks! Oh, and I don't want to spend much more than say $25-30 improving the deck beyond cards I already have or what came in the deck.
It's not as versatile as Cloudshift (dodging a spell before you get archetype) however it allows you to abuse ETB every turn.
If you're going to go with ETB Avenger of Zendikar with Craterhoof Behemoth would be ideal since they're both 5/5's and would tutor each other, and have great synergy with the ETB/token/BFM strategy (assuming you decide to run Wild Pair).
However they're both expensive being, $5.56 and $10.66 TCG mid.
Decent replacements at a cheaper cost would be, Hornet Queen (preorder at $1.52 TCG mid ship on July 18), and Sylvan Primordial $0.82 TCG Mid. Hornet Queen Will give you tons of deathtouch blockers with flying, and Sylvan Primordial will give you some field control (land destruction if you play that way) while tutoring out all of your land, to increase your mana base while making sure you wont top deck land when you need a creature.
I know mana cost looks like it could be a problem, but playing with the wall mana ramp will ramp your mana base very quickly.
I completely forgot about this creature until just a moment ago Axebane Guardian has a CMC 1 more than Overgrown Battlement however it's cheaper TCG mid $0.15 and gives you mana of any color making managing a 2 color deck a little easier.
4x Axebane Guardian
4x Overgrown Battlement
3x Wall of Reverence
3x Garruk's Packleader
3x Sylvan Primordial
3x Hornet Queen
2x Archetype of Endurance
4x Prey Upon
3x Wild Pair
3x Conjurer's Closet
If it runs right turn 1 land, turn 2 land Overgrown Battlement turn 3 land Axebane Guardian, Overgrown Battlement, turn 4 you can play any card in your deck 2 of most of them. You could drop Wild Pair and Armada Wurm to attack for 20 trample turn 5, if you're really lucky and you've got it in your hand you could even castCloudshift on one of the Armada Wurms turn 4 with your 1 leftover white mana from Axebane Guardian or white land, dropping a third 5/5 trample token, to swing for 25 trample turn 5.
Avenger of Zendikar and Craterhoof Behemoth are unfortunately way out of my price range. A set of those Behemoths would be more than the entire rest of the deck cost. Maybe someday though. Sylvan Primordial might be worth using though. It's another case of not being sure what I should switch out for it though.
Mana costs with my current list definitely don't seem to be a problem so far though. I've been testing stuff in Cockatrice tonight and between the Borderland Rangers and Overgrown Battlements I almost never seem to have a problem getting the Wurms out by turn 5 or 6 with the potential for it to happen turn 4.
Here's my current list:
Armada Wurm x4
Borderland Ranger x3
Garruk's Packleader x3
Overgrown Battlement x4
Thragtusk x4
Wall of Reverence x3
Citanul Flute x3
Conjurer's Closet x3
Cloudshift x4
Rebuke x4
Oblivion Ring x3
Wild Pair x4
Edit: Oh, and with this list the Thragtusks and Garruk's Packleaders work with eachother for Wild Pair as well as the Borderland Rangers and Overgrown Battlements.
Wild Pair Is a great card I wouldn't run 4 though, your going to be mad when you have one on the field, need a creature to swing the state of the game and draw a second, I would run 3.
Thragtusk Is a great card and makes a great addition to this deck especially with you running Conjurer's Closet
Sylvan Primordial Great card, I wouldn't run him in place of Hornet Queen though. She puts out 4 1/1 flying deathtough creatures everytime you activate her ETB. Combine Prey Upon with one of those 1/1 you can kill a creature of any size at the cost of a chump blocker, that you can replace at end of turn.
I would
Drop 4 [cardRebuke[/card] and replace it with Prey Upon
Drop 1 Wild Pair and 1 Thragtusk for 2 [/card]Hornet Queen[/card] You can tutor her with Borderland Ranger and Overgrown Battlement your going to need defense against flying, and she interacts well with the deck design. If you're not comfortable taking out a Wild Pair since it's a cornerstone for this deck, take out a Citanul Flute you likely wont miss it too much.
Archetype of Endurance is the hard one... There wont be any synergy with the other creatures and Wild Pair. But you really need the defense for your creatures.
I agree about Wild Pair, I generally try not to put in 4 of any cards that don't really do anything on their own.
Also agree about the Hornet Queen. I totally missed that I can use Borderland Ranger and Overgrown Battlement to get it out extremely reliably.
As for the Archetype, I think I'll take out a Citanul Flute and something else to put 2 of them in.
If you're going to side deck specifically for that deck Pitfall Trap is better than Rebuke, that style of deck generally only attack with 1 creature at a time.
My Decks:
All my Decks are budget
EDH:GRWHazezon TamarGRW, RKazuul, Tyrant of the CliffsR, BMikaeus, the UnhallowedB, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GRXenagos, God of RevelsGR, BGPharika, God of AfflictionBG
Standard:BMono Black Control(devotion)B- retired
Casual:UWHeroicUW, UGWall tribalUG, BPhylactery LichB
Modern:UBAbyssal PersecutorUB, WKnight TribalW
It also has a ton of life gain between Wall of Reverence and Thragtusk so I think taking a few early hits will be recoverable.
The best spot removal for this deck would be
But they are kind of expensive, Swords is $2.24 TCG Mid
Path is even more expensive at $4.02 TCG Mid
Devouring Light Is easily the next best choice though.
hand discard usually isn't casual, but if it is for this deck's style i recommend brain maggot and a few more creatures like Augur of Bolas, Vampire Nighthawk. And if u truly wanted to be mean there is ebony owl netsuke, Black Vise, Merfolk Looter, Cephalid Broker, Whispering madnessMegrim. Yup some one-sided cycling recycle would definitely be nice.
My Decks:
All my Decks are budget
EDH:GRWHazezon TamarGRW, RKazuul, Tyrant of the CliffsR, BMikaeus, the UnhallowedB, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GRXenagos, God of RevelsGR, BGPharika, God of AfflictionBG
Standard:BMono Black Control(devotion)B- retired
Casual:UWHeroicUW, UGWall tribalUG, BPhylactery LichB
Modern:UBAbyssal PersecutorUB, WKnight TribalW
Not sure u actaully need the 1 drop deathtouch creature.
My Decks:
All my Decks are budget
EDH:GRWHazezon TamarGRW, RKazuul, Tyrant of the CliffsR, BMikaeus, the UnhallowedB, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GRXenagos, God of RevelsGR, BGPharika, God of AfflictionBG
Standard:BMono Black Control(devotion)B- retired
Casual:UWHeroicUW, UGWall tribalUG, BPhylactery LichB
Modern:UBAbyssal PersecutorUB, WKnight TribalW
Having been a long time fan of LoTR I love me some Freefolk. Is it possible to build a deck for casual, non-tournament play based around Treefolk for less than 130 Dollars? I want something that comes out hitting hard and fast, and that doesn't break the bank. Any list suggestions?
2 Mosswort Bridge
4 Joraga Treespeaker
4 Treefolk Harbinger
4 Bosk Banneret
4 Dungrove Elder
4 Dauntless Dourbark
4 Leaf-Crowned Elder
2 Sapling of Colfenor
2 Timber Protector
2 Deadwood Treefolk
2 Gifts of the Gargantuan
2 Reach of Branch
2 Rootgrapple
Pretty powerful and straightforwarded deck. Been running it for 3-4 years on the kitchen table and it never let me down.
4 Dungrove Elder
4 Heartwood Storyteller
4 Treefolk Harbinger
4 Timber Protector
4 Dauntless Dourbark
4 Leaf-Crowned Elder
4 Bosk Banneret
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Descendants' Path
Lands: 24
24 Forest
Alternatively, you could go with a multi-colored Doran, the Siege Tower treefolk deck, which is fun too. Too lazy to try to make a deck with that... But some cards could include Murmuring Bosk, Indomitable Ancients, Eland Umbra and Tower Defense.
When Autocarding a deck, type:
[Deck*]
Creatures: 1
4 Little Girl
Other Creatures: 1
4 Phyrexian Obliterator
[/Deck*]
Once again, remove the asterisks to get:
4 Little Girl
4 Phyrexian Obliterator
Yay! Now people are actually look at your decklist properly and help you improve it! Excellent! You can tell that I love exclamation marks!
1. Try to run playsets of cards (meaning 4 of a card). This way your deck will win more consistently and you will draw your better cards more often.
2. Make sure to focus your deck on one single idea that can win you the game and make sure all the cards in your deck contribute to that idea. You have a limited number of cards so make sure all of them count. For example, your deck could be a Elf Tribal deck, an Aggro aggressive deck or maybe a Control deck.
3. Card advantage is very important. You need to understand that cards the draw you more cards are extremely helpful. The more cards you have in your hand the more options you have. With more options you have a greater chance at winning the game.
4. Removal is also quite important. Most decks more or less should run at least some removal.
5. Last but not least, make sure your deck is exactly 60 cards! Even 61 is not acceptable. Good luck in deck building!
I recently built a budget winter orb deck and would
Like to hear any suggestions/ thoughts about it (budget is around $40)Any format is fine.
4 fabricate
4 winter orb
4 icy manipulator
4 mishra's helix
3 azorius keyrune
2 azorius cluestone
3 azorius signet
2 ankh of mishra
3 journey into nowhere
12 plains
12 islands
Dream Tides - Combined with Winter orb and Frozen Æther to completely lock down your opponents, at best your opponents will only get an attack in with a creature every two turns.
Sol Ring - Ramp and it will allow you to keep mana available.
Khalni Gem - Ramp and colored mana, also allows you to return a land so that you can play it again and it will be untapped.
Chimeric Staff - Creature that bypasses Dream Tides and can become a larger creature as the game goes on.
I want to build a white deck. For casual play, that could be altered to Standard with out too much change.
I like to use Ajani's Pridemate, along with some life gaining cards, ie Sungrace Pegasus, Soul's Warden, Souls Attendant, Paragon Of New Dawns...I guess you see where I'm going with this. I'd like some more fliers in there too if possible.
I've done a bit of research, hence the Soul Sister's but I'm unsure what else to run as my deck is pretty good if the cards combine otherwise I get taken out fairly easily with larger creatures and spells. If I don't get my lands out then I can't get out my 3/4 drop creatures and then it's a case of just waiting to die.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated, especially on specialised lands (do I need them with mono-white).
Budget would be $40.
Cheers, wtpmagic
I'm guessing I need a modern deck based around The Soul Sisters. I'm currently moving cards in and out of 2 decks plus some xtras. I know there is a good deck in their somewhere, but every time I put something in/take out it seems to get broken in a different way.
I want to play standard too but imagine this will need a drastically different deck?
As far as the decks that you're working on man, it's always difficult to make sure you have the proper balance, the easiest way is to see what you're going to play against, and adjust for that. If you're playing and creatures are a big problem then you'll need removal, if you just can't seem to get your creatures to stay on the field then you need recursion, protection, or more resilient creatures, this is also where your sideboard comes in. Say you've got your deck built to where you want it to be at, but it has a lot of difficulty against RDW (Red Deck Wins) and you're running into them quite often. Dragon's Claw is a pretty good card for playing against a RDW but it's completely useless when playing against most every other deck. You don't want it in your main 60 cards because it will be a dead card in hand when you aren't playing against RDW so you throw a few into your sideboard specifically for RDW.
You don't want to sideboard too heavily against RDW though, because that wont be the only deck you're going to run into, and it likely wont be the only deck you have difficulty with. Try to find things that will work well against more than one deck that you have trouble with. Fiendslayer Paladin for example, is an easy addition to a Soul Sisters deck, 2/2 first strike, lifelink, with a built in protection against Red and Black removal for 3 mana is a great card. Maybe this isn't a main 60 because there are other cards that work better, (Never built or played Soul Sisters may be main 60 worthy) but it should be considered for sideboard if not main 60 because of it's usefulness against multiple builds making it strictly better than Dragon's Claw but not as good against RDW as Dragon's Claw.
Be careful with your selections, even when a card looks awesome (Hallow) it can be horrible to use, and to sideboard because of its limited applications. On the other hand, there are cards that don't seem very good at first (Cloudshift) glance but are actually extremely useful and rarely end up being a dead card in hand.
There are also cards that are often amazingly good cards in every deck but the one you're running. Wrath of God for example is a really good card that a lot of decks run, in a Soul Sisters deck though, it would be a bad choice, because of your reliance on creatures.
Building a deck is one of the most difficult things to learn how to do, but it can also be one of the most fun and rewarding things to do. It's awesome to think it through, study the cards, look for the interactions, gather the cards, and finally put it all together and see all of the thought and work come together.
No matter what you do, or how much you test and study other decks, you will never be able to build a deck that is good against everything and fun to play, play against.
P.S. In my area, we price based on tcgplayer.com.
-MD