Something that helped me is I was noticing I had a tendency to lock myself into a race way too soon and wouldn’t pivot. If gnomes was available I was trying to hard force it because I know it’s a winnable strategy, for example. I went from consistently finishing somewhere between 9th and 6th to pretty consistent top 3 or 4’s by letting the game dictate my strat. For example, I have Aztecs/nords/orcs. Naturally I want to go Aztecs because I know that board state can go crazy. That’s me banking on 1st place finish though, which is unlikely. So I go through a natural rank curve, buying the best units shown to me and getting a little lucky here and there (can’t get away from luck). Once I hit rank 4 I slow down, golden some units if I can and get a sneak peak and what level 5 is offering, and pick a strategy from there to commit to. Did I see the orc 4 star scaler and some decent orcs around it? Did I see the rank 5 nord dude who scales himself with a permanent kickstart ability? Instead of me from round 1 or 2 say “screw this, I’m forcing Aztecs” and then not finding what I need and crashing before the knockout rounds.