Look, let's be honest, the 'Jousting' mode is one of the crown jewels of 'Game of Thrones: Kingsroad' Season 2. It is a scheduled regional event, offering you a proper chance to experience the jousting tournaments from the lore. Plus, you get to rake in various rewards like family crests, dragon gold, and season tokens, so missing out on this is honestly a bit cheeky.

The entry ticket recharges once every single day.

Stepping into the arena requires 'Season Regional Event Reward Counts' alongside '4,500 Copper Coins'. The reward counts recharge once daily, capping out at a maximum of 7. Once you hit that 7-count ceiling, they stop recharging altogether, so keep that in mind. Just a quick heads-up: the season regional event reward counts and the standard regional event reward counts are tracked entirely separately.

Nail your tactical choices, and you are already halfway to absolute victory.

The jousting matches essentially run across 5 rounds for a total of 2 matches, alternating between 'tactical selection' and 'QTE' sequences. Depending on your tactical choices and QTE success, you can drastically slash what could be a 5-round slog down to a swift 3 rounds. In short, if you want to shave down your playtime, you need a solid calculation right from the very first hurdle.

Tactics are split into 5 distinct flavours: 'Heavy Strike', 'Precision Strike', 'Counter', 'Knight's Blow', and 'Squire's Treason'. Each comes with its own inherent attribute, locked in a delightfully intuitive rock-paper-scissors dynamic. The core three elements—'Fire, Water, and Nature'—follow a classic triangular rule: Fire beats Nature, Nature beats Water, and Water beats Fire. Toss in the special attributes 'Light and Dark', and things get properly spicy. Light dominates all three core elements but is vulnerable to Dark. Meanwhile, Dark struggles against the core three elements but holds the upper hand against Light.

For the opening round, a Light-attribute Knight's Blow comes highly recommended. It might only have a single absolute weakness, but it boasts the advantage against three separate attributes. It is quite simply your best card to secure dominance in Round 1 when you have zero intel on the opponent's tactical patterns.

From Round 2 onwards, you should lean into the golden rule that once a tactic is spent, it cannot be reused for the rest of the match. Pick a counter-tactic to whatever the opponent threw out in the previous round to completely eliminate the risk of getting countered yourself. For instance, if the opponent opted for a Fire-attribute Heavy Strike in Round 1, you respond with a Nature-attribute Precision Strike, given that Nature folds to Fire.

The only real exception is when the opponent trots out a Light or Dark attribute tactic. When that happens, do not panic; just use one of the standard Fire, Water, or Nature options. The Dark-attribute Squire's Treason carries a whopping three weaknesses, so keeping it packed away in your pocket is generally the wisest play.

QTEs consist of 4 distinct variations in total.

Locking in your tactic instantly triggers the QTE phase. First up, you face three consecutive timing-based button presses. On a keyboard, that simply means hammering the SPACE key three times. Just keep in mind that the success window shrinks slightly with every press, though it is still a breeze to pull off.

Next up come 'Press twice within the time limit', 'Press three times within the time limit', and 'Press to the rhythm', appearing in rapid succession. These QTEs pop up in a completely random order, though the exact same QTE will never repeat twice in a row. The keys you need on your keyboard are always Q, E, and F. If nailing the exact timing proves a bit too fiddly, just slam all three keys at once. Since the system does not penalise you for hitting extraneous keys, pressing all three simultaneously while nailing the timing still counts as a clean pass.