Immaterial hurts, yeah.
But HGs are essential to the build. Speed is needed early on to rip through your deck and draw all required cards (novas/eternity/dune/buff) as early as humanly possible.
32 cards is too bulky and even further speeds down the process and gives more bad draws. But in all honesty, this deck functions 10x worse without HGs and with more novas. This deck also functions much better if you upgrade HGs/buffs early on to really get them out as soon as possible without hurting the effectiveness of the deck. It is NOT a nova based deck, so finding the perfect balance between nova/quantum balance is needed in all areas.
Hell, I used this version with only HGs/off element cards upgraded and beat 6 of the fastest rushes around, sometimes due to haxxor shield, others due to sheer draw power. Trust me, much better in PvP2 than PvP1 due to PvP2 is mainly rushses.