Heh, I started out with the Darkness starter, fought AI0, 1, and 2 several times and ended up creating a weird Darkness mod with Novae, Spark, and some other random cards. My win rate was horrible so I decided to restart.
Then I discovered there was a wiki for Elements. I used the wiki to construct a Mono Darkness EM deck, spent most of my time using it to grind AI3, and then went on to construct RoL/Hope. After that it was pretty smooth sailing, but looking back on things, it's interesting to see how my perception of this game has changed so much in so little time.