As you play, you'll hear that there is a difference between tourney warriors and regular old arena warriors. Recently, I received here in DM 93 what I saw as a tourney warrior. He came to me as 14-10-6-15-12-10-3 What makes this a tourney warrior!?! Small size, 21 wit, and physicals. 21 wit is the first thing that should make you think about tourneys. Though not all 21 wits are 'good' tourney warriors. But if they have the rest of the numbers in the right place (i.e. enough physicals and sufficient skills for the style), you should consider training them as tourney warriors. Many 17 wit warriors have done well through Initiates (very occasionally even beyond that, but those are exceptions) and there are other 'types' of warriors that excel in Rookies and Apprentices (AB's and warriors with high Strength/ Constitution/Will typically).
Back to my warrior. 21 wit is the obvious (to me) first 6 points. Even for non-tourney warriors, 21 wit is a fantastic thing. But then it gets very, very tricky. 17 strength ensures good damage. 15 or 17 will is a wonderful thing. And you also want deftness for weapons. I decided to roll the dice on the damage and take some will and 7 deftness for well suited to my weapons. It didn't work out for me, but it was a risk I was willing to take. 15-10-6-21-15-10-7. With the low deftness, you want to start with a higher attack style (SL/LU/BA/WS). Because of the potential physical issues (Normal Endurance and Normal Damage), I chose Slasher, the style that would cope best with those physicals. Sure enough, he came back norm/norm.
He still ran in the tourney. He went 1-3. I will run him again at 4 FE in Apprentices and 10 FE in Initiates. (FE is fight equivalent. You get 1 FE forn each fight in the regular arena and 1 FE for each odd turn of a tourney that you fight in. So he currently has 2FE--3FE after fighting this turn in DM 93.) After Initiates, I will decide whether to continue running him in tourneys or not. The numbers alone won't make him a success.
Some warriors do well, some do not -- even if they start with the same stats. What should you do if you receive a warrior that you think is a potential stud tourney warrior? (potential 21 in wit, high str/con and potential 21 in will, or 21 deftness with low con OR low speed, or size 3-4) My recommendation would be to ask for help the first time. I'll be the first to say 21 wit and 3-4 size aren't magic, but they are awesome! I just ran what I thought was a stud in the Champions class (30FE) of the recent tourney. He was a basher that had learned 19 attack, 16 decise, and 19 initiative with stats of 13(1)-3-10-21-17-14-7 and had normal endurance and good damage. It doesn't get much better than that. I knew going in that he'd never done anything in tourneys before (he didn't have the something special in him -- some people call this something special 'knack', 'hidden stats', or a built in 'luck stat'). That said, I had high hopes. What happened? He faced 3 strikers and lost to all 3 of them early. 1-3 and out! Matchups can make or break warriors! You either need to win some of those bad matchups or avoid them.
Finally, realize that 21 wit is NOT the end all to tourney warriors. Some 17 wit guys do very, very well. And there are tourneys where wit is not as important (Rookies, Apprentices, Challengers and up). But for Inits, Adepts, and Champions, it is hard to compete without 21 wit (because most of your opponents have it).