There are a few things you can do about competition at Tax Deed auctions.
1. Look for more remote counties where less people live.
I find that people are lazy. They are not willing to drive 1-2-3 hours to for anything so they just go to their local Tax Deed Auction in their metropolitan city. But if you go to an auction where millions of people are living, more people are going to show up and competition increases. At the same time a higher density of population does not automatically mean that more properties are available for sale. On the contrary counties which are almost vacant of people often have tons of tax delinquent properties coming up for auction and since almost nobody lives there and the people from the big cities are too lazy to drive there for the auction, competition is minimal.