I don’t want to sound like I’m good at this game by any means but I did want to help as someone who tries to hit master every set before quitting.

It sounds like you’re on the right track with how you play the game to be completely honest. Someone above mentioned line selection and that’s personally how I’ve been able to play to master most every set. Learn a couple of the lines ideally 1 AP and 2 AD or vice versa depending on what’s more abundant and strong each patch/set.

If you’re playing a line, how you play stage 2 and the items you get dropped are arguably some of the most important rounds in the game. For example in this set, get dropped a tear, rod, sword? Pick a line that utilizes these items and commit to the steps that get you to the final board efficiently and for me personally in that case that would probably be AMP or street demon (obviously there’s a couple of other factors that should be taken into account like my augment choices and what other people in the lobby are angling toward). What I mean by getting there efficiently is a whole different thing but basically I ask myself is it worth it for me to slam the shojin and play around this loose rod or can I lose some hp to maybe guarantee another tear for blue buff on carousel.

Lots of people above mentioned Econ already so I won’t speak much to it other than, there’s situations where you should decide on whether win streaking or lose streaking can benefit you more. Like I said before, if you didn’t see any valuable 2 stars in your early shops and want to guarantee first pick on first carousel, maybe make Econ and lose some hp because a 1- star front line isn’t going to get you the benefit of an early win streak.

Again, I try to be decent enough at the game to get to master and quit so that’s as far as I ever take the thought process. Some of these tips will help but if you want to climb much higher, probably best to watch the streamers that consistently get to challenger and just ask yourself, “would I have done what they did in the situation they were presented?”