The bracket you'll be placed in is completely random. You won't be matched with players from the same bracket most likely. It's only about points there.

Lower xp players have higher chances to score more per battle since they're paired with braindead bot that are easy to farm. Higher xp often means going against heavy spenders that have double or tripple your SP.

How to score high? Buy golden tickets in the store. Yup, pay to win. Tournaments are not about who plays better. It's about who can afford playing more.

To top tournament there are 6 steps:

1. Analyse the map with your mechs and find mechs that work best on that map.Customise your hangar based on it.

2. Equip meta builds on those mechs,for example a panther can equip dual Disk Launcher 8's or dual Missle Rack 8 which are really strong.

3. Acquire tournament tickets from crates and purchase them with a-coins.

4. Try to make up a strategy for each mech on that map for the Heat.

5. Remove ligh mechs from your hangar and instead use tanks or mechs with good health as they will last longer than light mechs and have better energy capacity

Also,try to equip strong weapons on your mechs for better damage potential.

6. Look at the leaderboard and see who's at top. Try to use their hangar as a idea and improve your own hangar. By repeating this, you will be constantly ready.

This is the strategy i follow and i have topped the  "Master" bracket with it most of the time.

Try avoiding tanks during a fight and concentrate on weakmechs. While a low SP means low level bots, I means low points perbattle.

Ok.Thats it.Bye

Please refer to this if you need it.