If you want money to buy weapons, keep playing tournaments that you have already won.In the tutorial alone, you get 500 gold each time you finish it and more advanced tournaments give you more money. After a while you can buy almost anything.
To deliver maximum damage to your foe you must follow up a combo with a Special Attack.
Try to be conservative in the use of your potions as using too many will result in you having to spend real cash if you want to replenish your stocks.
It is sometimes better to restart a bout than to carry on if it looks like you're just going to survive and win as your health doesn't regenerate during a tournament and early pyrrhic victories make your chances of winning in the later rounds almost impossible.
