I did all the lab puzzles, yeah. I'll go back some time and let you know which of them I found most useful - most notably the dial-a-stones, obviously. I did also explicitly counter the weirder fights, and it wasn't enough to win - if you want I can capture some video of my play? I don't *think* I'm doing anything very wrong... As for skipping the non-boss levels, it really seems like every level should be reasonably beatable with however much energy you have when you first encounter them! I did however understand that I could skip them and come back to them if I chose and indeed I did just that; more generally I don't think making those assumptions more clear in game is going to be necessary/enough, because the overall level of the fights is *almost uniformly so hard* (and going second *so big of a disadvantage*) as to make none of that matter quite as much.
It might be nice to have more than one deck slot, by the way. That way you don't have to memorize your deck when you've changed it to counter those specific weird fights and then want to put it back (and even if you *do* remember it perfectly, it takes *how many* individual clicks in the late game?)