I was only able to beat the easy AI, the hard AI destroyed me every time. Something that would be helpful is seeing which squares the AI moved a piece from ... I felt like I kept seeing moves that came out of nowhere, but likely were just due to my bad board vision.
The upgrades definitely add a lot of chaos. It seems the AI doesn't know how strong the freeze upgrade is ... it had its queen in my backline next to a freeze upgrade and did not even bother to grab it. I did resign that game anyway so maybe it knew what was happening.
It was fun trying to incorporate the orbs into my strategy, although I likely played too aggressively for getting the orbs. Something fun is how they change your ability to e.g. open a file -- in one game I teleported a pawn away from my file with the portal, although I then immediately blundered the rook anyway.
Nice entry!