Unfortunately, I'm not sure there is a way to avoid the cringe factor of being direct, as its sort of hard to combine a story with the cards and have it make perfect sense. Good news is that you did a great job softening the blow... hehe...
I really enjoyed it, and not often is losing part of the tutorial too! This does seem like it will be an interest concept/idea/game to explore with the mashup between the stories and card battles! Yes it might lack some cohesion (hee...), but I have trouble thinking about any way to make it better, so I think its perfect the way it is!
Sometimes you just have to get back up (if you can), dust yourself off (as much as you can reach), and keep moving forward (its always a struggle!)! X/3