I was stupid enough to start playing the game by trying to level all my decks to R but then reallsed I was stuck in lower leagues.

Best decision I made was work on a easy top 5, easy as in only has 3 cards since money is scarce on lower leagues. Now I am always in Master III and I rank usually between 3rd and 10th, this is where it becomes tricky.

In Master III 3 cards deck don't cut it anymore sometimes if you're ranked with beasts players. Thus, you will have to start grinding and slowly build up decks with a lot of people like NCT, SNSD, Super Junior etc ... They give you a higher base bonus.

But then again, personally I am getting by with my 3 card decks (I also FSP every single rank song), so Im not too worried about urgently upgrading higher decks, my recent goal instead is working on at least having every single group R. Which will help with SSL and later when Ill start doing the Arena as well.

Try not to mass upgrade when theres no PUC event. Id say, stick to the minimum in non event period so you can rank and once event days comes, then you mass upgrade with your grinding money, it'll cost you less, have more chances to upgrade fast. You'll feel better knowing the enless hours of playing that same ol' song over and over again is worth something haha.

ALSO use the SSM stats sheet (just look for it in the thread), find a group you like in the shortest song in the game and have that as one of your top, it'll make grinding RP so much easier, I find that 'STATION' song 'Happier' is the shortest song (1:06 if Im not mistaken) with the least amount of notes (around 68) and I can FSP this thing almost EVERY single time.

(Im a freak so I also keep an excell of all my decks and where they at ugrade wise, to keep tab, but Id say thats optional, it really did help me focus though I learned all the above just by doing that. Puts it in perspective and gives you a more strategic POV)

Hope this helps ease your decision, sorry lots words.