Quick update: I had my first win in Friday, the game I wrote about in my last post. Two things I did differently this time around:

1. Moderation. I didn’t go all in on “destroy the weak cards immediately” or “pick the biggest fight.” Instead, I made measured decisions, sometimes picking big fights and sometimes taking easy victories. I realized that easy wins are better to prioritize too early in the phase. My deck never got too small or big, and my health points never dropped too low.
2. Destroy what once was good. There are cards that are good in the first phase that are bad in the second or third phase. You have a limited number of card draws before it starts costing you life points, so every card needs to pull its weight. A one point card is fine in phase one, but awful in phase three, so by then you’ll want to destroy these.

I’ll still stick with Level 1 until I get bored. I’m not ready to assume it wasn’t a fluke that I finally won tonight.