Board Thread:Game Discussion/@comment-9234979-20130603003622/@comment-184.88.157.225-20130603010310

Yes, it has been confirmed that leveling happens at a quicker rate during Episodes, than outside of Episodes. The theory is 2x during episodes, while I cannot confirm that, it is definitely quicker.

You're right that once an episode is over, any Episode cards become "normal" cards, and using them after that point will never get you the Rare Episode cards. And they do not become episode Medals on the next episode, they're still only "normal" medals.

As far as "cashing-in" all the medals before the episode is over, it becomes a matter or pros vs cons. If you have a large cache of non-episode gold cards, then no real harm in casing them all in, even though chances of getting anything unique are very rare, not mention the fact that only 1 form of a card is pretty useless, so you need to have lighting strike twice, at least. However, if you do not have a lot of non-episode cards, then you may want to forego the "gambling" for the rare card, and stockpile those cards, so you can level up the R3s and R4s for the next episode.