What to do for mid-level players?

[at8mistakes]

I've been playing Elements casually for awhile, and really enjoy the game. I have at least 12 of most rares (not necessarily upgraded) except the elusive Nymphs and a shard or two, and cycle between 2 or 3 decks to farm FG's, play in the Arena, or occasionally play some PVP2. However, I'm a bit lost at the moment. Since I have a few decks that are fully upgraded, and I like playing all of them, I've just been gathering gold. I have around 100,000 gold at the moment, and don't know what to spend it on. There aren't any decks I want to play, but I also don't want to arbitrarily upgrade random cards since it seems like a waste. I've thought about just keeping 90,000 in the bank, since that would let me upgrade 60 cards if the rules changed and all of my decks are borked, and then upgrading randomly as I go, but am interested in hear what other players do/have done at this point in the game.

I enjoy the grind, don't get me wrong, this is just the first time since starting to play that I don't have a clear goal in mind, such as saving up to upgrade X cards for a specific deck or deck idea. The ultimate goal is to get 12 of every card obviously, but is there a better/recommended upgrade path?

Also, and this is just a personal mental block, but I cannot bring myself to sell any rare cards. I'm sure my numbers are tiny compared to less casual players, but I have ~20 of most shards, 24 Pharoahs, 19 Morning Glories, etc. I know I should sell them so I only have 6 base and 6 upgraded, but I have that nagging feeling in my head preventing me. It wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the old relics turning into Shards. I was shocked one day when I logged in and all of my relics had turned into different shards, and sad that I had sold tons of them before the switch. It turned out fine in the end since I have at least 12 of them all except the Shard of Integrity, but I know the day after I sell all of my extra rares we'll all be allowed to use 8 of each card. 

[omegareaper7]

I, personally, chose my favorite elements one by one and started upgrading 6 of each from them. Or favorite cards if you want to narrow it down.
There is also the option of just messing around and testing random decks that look interesting out.  I'm sure others can list off more then these two though.

[CuCN]

whatifidogetcaught? compiled a list of cards that cannot be won from FGs. If you upgrade any of these cards you don't have to worry about later winning them and wasting your electrum (assuming no new FGs), so it's a possible intermediate goal. You can also choose to upgrade cards to build your arena decks with. Keeping 90k electrum at all times, like you said, is a good idea.

[Marsu]

I like your post very much. Reminds me of myself a bit.

A simple solution: Join the Forum PvP Events! Not only is it great fun and a difficult, new challenge, but you can also win Nymphs & Mark Cards there. And: Due to the mostly limited card pool, you will often have to upgrade a few cards for one or two decks you want to use there. There's your goal.

[Higurashi]

Upgrading specific FG counters is a profitable next step. After that I started making sure I had everything for my favourite elements. I started with Aether, then Fire, Life, Death, Darkness, etc.

Joining forum events is what -really- kept me occupied though. I joined tournaments before I had even a handful of upped cards and learned very fast thanks to the fast pace in them. The community is the main reason I'm still here.

[treebeard xiii]

I personally upgrade my favourite elements primarily until i come up with an experimental deck i want to try, another way to get a goal is to join pvp events in forum not only does it give you a more enriching experience you find that there are some nice decks you wouldn't of even thought of to upgrade, and believe me sell your extra rares most are easy enough to get again in case of some sudden rule change (highly unlikely), as a fond deckbuilder myself upgrade cards that are all round useful cards granting you the abilty to experiment with a wider range of decks.

[ColorlessGreen]

As CuCN noted, you can't really go (that) wrong upgrading the non-FG cards.

Regarding selling rares, I have something like 400k electrum worth of spare rares on my main. There's no value to keeping them other than as collectibles, but there's nothing wrong with collecting them if that's your thing (and you don't consider having a bit less money wrong). Personally, I find spare rares to be a better collection/trophy than the spare pillars/pends which make up trainer edition (which means I'll never personally have actual trainer edition due to the card cap being lower than trainer edition plus my spare rares, though I will have trainer-edition-if-I-sold-my-spare-rares).

Regarding what to do, what I did when I was in your situation is just sit on the money and read the forums. Reading the forums turned up no shortage of decks that looked interesting to play to me, and whenever I found something I was itching to try out, that's where I'd spend the money. If there wasn't something I was itching to try out immediately, I just saved my money until there was. In most cases I held a reserve of 45k (enough to fully upgrade a 30 card deck) in case of a patch borking all of my current farming decks. I don't really recommend upgrading stuff at random until you've got enough money/cards to be able to play basically whatever strikes your fancy. Once you do start upgrading stuff at random, I would personally actually probably start with pillars/pends, since they're extremely useful all over and hard (in some cases) or impossible (in some cases) to win from FGs.

[sixers]

Jeez, I can't believe you guys have so much electrum saved up. Every time I have about 10k saved. I can't help but spend it to build a new PVP deck. It's always an impulse thing.

[Elbirn]

It wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the old relics turning into Shards. I was shocked one day when I logged in and all of my relics had turned into different shards, and sad that I had sold tons of them before the switch.

Spoiler for Hidden:

[ColorlessGreen]

It wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the old relics turning into Shards. I was shocked one day when I logged in and all of my relics had turned into different shards, and sad that I had sold tons of them before the switch.

Spoiler for Hidden:

Yeah, that never happened. Relics are still relics.

Unless you're talking about when unupped shards (i.e. the cards that were all called "shard" and did nothing unupped) changed into actual usable cards, but in that case, unupped green shards turned into unupped SoGs (which they always were), and unupped blue shards turned into unupped SoDs (which they always were), etc.

That wasn't cards turning into other cards, though, so much as just the unupped versions of shards becoming usable unupped, while they had previously only been usable while upped. This happened quite a while ago, and if you've got enough SoG, SoD, and SoR, you've got everything you could have had from them. At no point has any card at all become any of the other nine shards.

[Higurashi]

I was in the same spot. Sold 100-ish SoG's for 5 each, then suddenly they're worth over a hundred each. At least my Relic collection of 200 was sold when you got more for them. I used them to make a life-sized model of ancient Rome.

[traceurling]

So much nostalgia from thinking about the beginning of shards