LOL, I totally feel you there! I won the turkey one over there, by the skin of my teeth, level 46 and that's all.
I am level 127 here, and been winning tourneys since I was old enough to participate. When younger, I concentrated on getting some decent regular fighters up...to list some, landworm, fruitful (yeah, that is correct lol!), aether, parakeet, clown, fire. Those were big winners for me early on. But don't underestimate the power of babies! Just as they can beat you, you can beat the bigger ones with them, too. Once you get a champion, things do get easier. However, the past several tourneys, seems something's...changed, not sure what, but they seem alot more random chance than anything now, which can be very frustrating...just like the FFS ones seem to be pretty danged random.