Artifacts that aren't equipped don't count towards your player power (as you can easily test for yourself) - so no, definitely don't delete your gear, just consider unequipping gear from champions that you don't use. 

What you don't talk about, though, is improving your team so you can win more matches again. If you've been playing for six months, then quite honestly you got into gold IV thanks to Plarium deliberately making that way too easy and you should consider yourself lucky to have gotten so many wins and hence medals 'for free' in the past months. Gold II may be closer to where you really ought to be. But in any case, yes, arena has gotten hard again, so now getting wins will require improving your arena team further and further. You can share your team and gear if you want advice on that. 

Thanks for a fast view and response. Unfortunately, unequipping artifacts seems like a poor and very costly work around as I'm always at a silver deficit. I have worked my way through a lot of Faction War content and have decently geared teams. I agree I have been blessed with a "free pass" of sorts at the infancy of my account unbeknownst to me.

My Arena team is no slouch although is knowingly lacking a Def down champ. I run Apoth, Roshcard, Turvold, and Tormin. My Team power has fluctuated a bit but ranges 130k-150k. Speeds on my Apo and Rosh are 250+, Tormin is for freeze procs on enemy buffers, Turvold does the dirty. I generally stay away from Serris teams and other Speed teams because I have no Arbiter yet. Which was seemingly easier to do few weeks back. Now every lineup is a full Arbiter speed lead teams with Serris popping out the wazoo. I do swap in Seer against enemy Valk and other unkillable teams, granted the other conditions were met. 

Put in a free win defense team and drop down to gold 1, if you still cant win, keep dropping until you can win. At least that way you can keep farming your great hall and use your refills you paid for. 

Also maybe play around with some different comps, you said your lacking a def down champ but you dont seem to be running a speed comp anywas. If you think def down will help I would assume you have warmaiden already>? If not just go farm her, and you can book her for free as well just takes awhile but hey gotta make food anywas.

So I have done your suggestion with dropping my rank, it takes way to long derank... And then I shoot right back up again. Have you seen the teams in silver? They are almost doubly as worse than those in gold. I had to put my Defense in just to get out of silver because offense was yet again unkillable. I don't have a suitable Aoe nuker atm and I'm currently working on a blender comp. Recently acquired Sinesha, Skullcrown, and Fatman. I am still not sure if getting them all maxed out will help my situation. 

Do you have one of your starter champs at level 60? I still use kael right now and I'm in gold 2. Any of the starters in a cruel set with arena masteries will do fine for the aoe nuke slot on a speed comp.

Edit : probably would need warmaiden(or any def down) for the starter champ nuker route to work not positive. 

Edit edit : Skullcrown and sinesha are beasts in the arena, wish I could pull them you lucky sob!

If they're lower quality artifacts, on champs you no longer use, you can also just destroy them instead of unequipping. If you already have 700 artifacts, you'll have to be selective and sell/destroy some lower quality gear anyway. But probably most of your geared champions are still getting used in FW - which is why some people have started to recommend newer players to stay away from FW entirely, or even suggested to delay the point where new players get access to FW. 

Interesting team, always good to see people try different things instead of the speed nuke meta... although I loathe Tormin, he was already good but after his last buff, he's become really overpowered. But hey, good for you, it will reduce the number of people wanting to attack you. 

I'm not sure about combining him with Roshcard and Apo, though - Apo's main job is speeding up the team and Roshcard is essentially useless if you lose the speed race (or if you win the speed race but face a good Serris/Sethallia/Rae etc who can just AOE buff strip), so the pair of them are not an ideal fit for a Tormin-led team with a def aura. I'd suggest changing your team, what other arena options do you have? 

When Plarium added low level accounts it gave a lot of player false sense of progression, now that these low level accounts were removed, you and a lot of players now are having sense of deterioration. 

I suggest not to derank your account from gold. See if you can stay at least in gold 1. Having the Fat guy as your ally attack champion will surely make Skullcrown and Senesha easier to gear. 

Who is your turnmeter booster? 

Funny Story, I never leveled my starter Elhain to 60 because I managed to pull a Cold heart before I did and just replaced her with Cold heart. I've been sitting on a Foli, since the last sacred 2x. I just don't have books for him and he seems to need them.

Looked like he was runing aphothacary might be wise to switch to HK if he has her leveld up.

Currently using Apo as my booster. I have a HK sitting @50 for my FW crew, not in any special gear and no masteries. 

I see, you are not yet ready for a blender comp. I was thinking you should have at least a Gorgorab then worry next on making him faster and speed tuning. 

It can work with high Khatun but you will not have an attack buff with her. 

Solid Update*

Pulled a Runekeeper Dazdurk with my last void yesterday. Blender is otw. 

player power is only taken in account in silver and bronze league (according to Plarium)

their algorithm change still screwed over plenty tho

Ya ,, I got this with 9 out of 10 teams of unkillable Teams that Speed Nuke me ,,,

caquse I am Stuck in Bronze I ,, took Hellhades advice and Didnt get rid of Anything 

unless it was a farmable Rare

So, I have started to lvl up all My ** F ** ,, ** C **  Banked Champs a few at a Time 

and am going to use them as Food  ,, Dont Need any F or C heros anyway 

Except Ripper Fist ,,, Seems I dont have any 100% Heal Reduction heros at all 

and i Pulled FOUR ripper fist from the Void event , Was Really Peeved till I seen his A2 was 1005 heal reduction for Spirit keep , But Yes,, 

Depleteing my Hero Collection in a HERO COLLECTION GAME !!!

Kinda Stupid that you can NOT COLLECT HEROS in a hero Collection game or you get Shafted

in an intrical part of said game ,,,

Post a Picture of your Roster.

Post a Picture of your Current Arena Team Stats.

Yes the teams you face in silver are just as hard as those in gold.

I can confirm this from recent experience.

I've power lvld my blender comp, much improvement. I've managed to hit G4 again although I'm trying to derank so I can use my refills.

(Buffed Stats)Runekeeper:307sp-Fatman:269sp Skullcrown:(Savage)5.1atk;100cr;241cd-Sinesha:3.5atk;100cr;200cd   Team Power is 93k. The next improvement will be getting Sinesha in Savage, and eeking out more speed. 

What were the odds I happened to pull all the right Champs in 2 weeks(3voids). Now I just feel bad for everyone else stuck in the boat I was