Hey. I experienced exactly the same thing. Grinded (ground?) my way up to $150 or so, jumped to 5NL, then felt like I had to start pulling all kinds of new tools out of the box to keep up with all the 3-betting, c-bet double barrels etc.

So, I think I went too far beyond the basics (read: played like shite) and found myself back at $120 pretty quickly. That's still sufficient roll for 5NL but I'm going to get back to $150 at 2NL just to reinstill the basics. (I'm pretty conservative with BRM).

Also, my first run was all at 6m and now I"m strictly playing FR. At 2NL almost every session is a win, so it's not that I think 5NL is much more difficult, just a lot more chips getting thrown around in general. Next time I won't try to get fancy.

Let me know how it goes on attempt #2 and I'll do the same.