Joust

Joust is an ability that causes a card to be revealed at random from the deck of each player. If the player who initiated the Joust has the higher mana cost card, a special secondary effect will be activated, depending on the Joust card. Once the Joust is complete, the two Jousting cards are shuffled back into their respective decks.

Jousts are triggered through other abilities, most commonly Battlecry, but at least one card uses Deathrattle to Joust.

Joust does not exist as a official keyword, but is the official term for the card text, "Reveal a [card] in each deck. If yours costs more, [secondary effect]."

Hearthstone

 * ''No tournament (especially one as grand as The Grand Tournament) would be complete without the time-honored tradition of jousting!


 * Minions Joust by emerging from their decks, creating a brief contest within a contest wherein players each reveal a minion from their deck. In order to win, the minion who initiated the Joust must reveal a minion with a higher mana cost. The rewards are varied based on the minion starting the Joust, but players will want to emerge victorious from the lists as often as possible!


 * There are many ways for a knight to prove their valor, but there’s only one true test of mounted might! An aspiring champion may face off against raging beasts in the arena or best skilled challengers in melee combat, but nothing shows off one’s heroic grandeur like mounting a noble steed and charging with a leveled lance in the ultimate chivalrous contest: the joust!

World of Warcraft

 * '' is a form of combat introduced with the, using the vehicle game mechanics.


 * At the time of its introduction, jousting was the vehicle used the most in World of Warcraft''. Opinions range from hating it because of the difficulty, to loving it because it is a challenging event, and because gear and class do not make a difference; only skill makes a difference in jousting.


 * ''Justicar Mariel Trueheart directs players to the pavilion for their respective faction. Once there, they are entered into the Argent Tournament rolls as an Aspirant.


 * 'Aspirants


 * ''The task of an aspirant is to practice the mechanics of jousting. Other tasks assigned aspirants include defeating a number of Scourge forces in the field, and retrieving weapons suitable to knights.


 * 'Valiants


 * ''Upon defeating the valiant, the character is promoted to the ranks of the valiants, representing their racial city, and are eligible to complete quests for tokens to advance to the rank of champion. They are eligible to joust with their race's favored mount.


 * ''Where aspirants are tasked to practice upon targets, valiants face live foes. While valiants are still tasked to retrieve weapons and defeat Scourge, they also practice mounted combat amongst themselves, and face mounted scourge forces in the field.


 * ''As a valiant completes quests, they earn Valiant's Seals, much like aspirants did. Upon completing enough (proving their ability), a valiant is challenged to defeat an Argent Champion.


 * 'Champions


 * ''Upon defeating the Argent Champion, the character is awarded the rank of Champion (of their city), and may thereafter continue to use their race's jousting mount at the Argent Tournament. If the character is Exalted with their race's faction, they earn the achievement Exalted Champion of (their city), and earn a corresponding title.


 * ''Champions face most of the same foes as valiants, but more difficult. They continue to train amongst themselves and battle scourge in general. At the Court of Bones, they are expected to challenge and defeat commanders of the Boneguard forces.


 * ''Additionally, champions may choose to qualify with other races of their faction, gaining the ability to ride their mounts, and eventually gaining the title of Champion to the other cities and access to the other race's tournament vendors.

Trivia

 * The developers came up with the idea of Jousting after choosing the Grand Tournament as the setting for the new expansion. With the key involvement of jousting in the original, the developers knew that they had to have "some kind of jousting" feature in the expansion. Earlier designs included "a lot of stuff with Charge", with some earlier versions becoming non-Joust minions in the set, such as Argent Horserider. The developers eventually settled on a process by which both players revealed a card, and whichever had the highest cost gained an extra effect; this was later changed to include only minions, as this allowed players to focus on including higher cost minions while still including lower cost spells.
 * Most Joust minions are mounted, helping to reinforce the theme.
 * Joust was not made into a keyword partly because of a lack of synergy with established keywords, and partly because it was "more in depth" than other keywords. It may also not have featured on a large enough range of cards.
 * After the release of The Grand Tournament, some players exploited the length of the jousting animation by playing Nozdormu and following it up with a Joust card, forcing their opponent to skip their next turn. During the player's subsequent turns, they would continue to play Joust cards and repeatedly force their opponent to miss turns until they won the game. This was eventually hotfixed.
 * Joust effects have largely been unused after The Grand Tournament, and as such are now only available in Wild matches.
 * It has however seen a somewhat return to form with Raven Familiar which has a similar effect but uses spells instead of minions.

Patch changes
Added.