Honestly, no catch, i mean, you are going to want some fairly common gear, like Antiquity gloves (these are a staple with good Faster Cast Recovery), Astro Deamon helm or Vecna, and high resists from your other gear. My gear is not impressive, I'm still using the Samauri Do chest piece (high resists and +10 parry) for doing champ spawns. Although a druid spell book is nice, it's not needed, and its only good (for me atleast) for the first few waves.
Champ Axes typically are "Triple Leech", meaning Leech Life, Leech Mana, and Leech Stamina, and can cost anywhere from 250k-750k for one fresh from the forges. But all that is REALLY needed (if you are on a tight budget) is Mana Leech, Stamina and Life are icing on the cake though. When I came back to the shard, I found a fine Champ Axe at a vendor for 30k, it had Mana Leech and Stamina Leech, and did the job to get me the gold together for better gear. I would hold on on using Weapon Level Deeds until you find an Axe (or other champ weapon) suitable and worth of going to lvl 100.
Be prepared, if you're not used to doing champs, you're going to die, maybe quite a few times, but the gold you receive should make up for the insurance costs.