Just started it this morning, took about 5-6hrs to finish it..
Once I actually figured out what I was doing I don't think I had any problems with Brilliants until the second to last level because of the boss.
Another thing I realized pretty late but what made early game auto-pilot, setting up for late game was:
I almost want to play it all over and do something else, but it takes too much time, fun stuff tho