Definitions in StarCraft 2

4G - Four Gateways. Cheese strategy, where the Protoss player builds 4 Gateways with a Cybernetics Core and with a proxy Pylon in order to attack with many Stalkers faster. The Protoss player can use the Proxy Pylon to reinforce his army very quickly.

6 pool - All-in strategy, where the Zerg doesn’t make any Drones. Instead he/she throws down a Spawning Pool; then the player makes 6 Zerglings, takes all of the Drones and attacks the enemy’s base. This is considered to be the fastest cheese in StarCraft 2.

7RR - The short for “7 Roach rush”.

20NR - The short for “20 minutes of no-rush”.

A

AA - The short for “Anti-Air units” and buildings.

AG – The short for “Anti-Ground” units and buildings like Spine Crawler or Zealot.

All-in - Attack or strategy where the gamer throws all of his units (even the workers) in the enemy’s base. If the attack fails, the attacker may type GG and leave the game. An example of an All-in strategy is the Zerg’s 6 pool.

AoE – The short for “Area of Effect” damage. For example, the splash damage of the Siege Tanks or the AA attack of the Thor.

APM – The short for “Actions Per Minute”. This is used to measure how fast the reactions of a given player are.

Artosis Pylon – Single Pylon, powering multiple production structures. You should always power your production structures with multiple Pylons.

Archon Toilet – Protoss strategy that involves a Mothership and a lot of Archons. The Protoss player lands a Vortex that has to suck as many enemy units as possible and then moves his Archons into the Vortex, too. When the Vortex is over, the AoE of the Archons will instantly kill all of the enemy’s units.

B

Bo(1, 3, 5, 7) -  Best of One, Three, Five, Seven, Nine… Those are all standard tournament and/or show-match formats.

Bombing – This is an advanced tactic that involves dropping units like Banelings on top of the enemy’s forces. This way the enemy will suffer greatly from the splash damage. You can also bomb the enemy’s tanks; this way the Siege Tanks will suicide from their own splash attack.
 
Base Race – This is a scenario, where you and your opponent are both attacking each other’s base simultaneously. The winner will be the one that destroys the opponent’s base faster.

Bronze Proof – These are strategies that are easy to perform and are applicable in the lower leagues. In the lower leagues most players tend to cheese a lot, but the Bronze Proof strategies counter every cheese.

Build order loss/win – This term is used when a player has won/lost, because the opponent countered his/build and not because the other player was more skilled or lucky.

BM - Bad Manner.

BO - Build Order.

C

Cheese - A tactic, designed to surprise the enemy in the early periods of the game. It is hard to deal with such strategy, if not scouted. These strategies are often all-ins, because if this fails, the cheesing player will be far behind in his development.

Chobo - Noob in Korean. This is a player that has almost no idea what he is doing. It is generally considered as Bad Manner to call someone Chobo in a game.

Critical Mass - Critical mass is a situation, where you have more than 10 high-tier ranged units like Siege Tanks/Void Rays/Broodlords.

Choke – Short for Choke Point: a gut between two areas.

D

Distance Mining – A situation, where your workers mine from a very long distance. The reason is that the closest mineral patches have been depleted. Basically players distance mine when they don’t have money to build a new base.

Droning - This is a Zerg term that is used to describe a period in the Zerg’s development where this player mutates nothing, but Drones from his Larvae.

Drop - Unloading units from a Warp Prism/Medivac/Overlord into the enemy’s base.

Doom Drop - Those are heavy drops, designed to do more damage than just harassment. A good example is a group of a four and more Medivacs, full with troops.

DPS – The short for “Damage Per Second”.

 

E

Elevator – A technique that involves a Warp Prism/Medivac/Overlord to transfer unit from a low-ground to high-ground and vice versa.

Elimination Race - The players have run out of minerals and it is all down to one final battle.

Economy – The income rate of minerals and vespene gas.

F

FE - Fast Expand.

FFE – The short for “Forge Fast Expand”.

FG – Stands for Fungal Growth and/or Fake Gas. Fake Gas is a technique where you build a gas providing structure, but don’t mine anything. This is designed to trick your enemy into thinking you are tech-ing up.

 

G

Gas Steal - When you build your gas harvesting structure in the enemy’s base.

Greedy - Player who tries to get an economic advantage in the early stages of the game. This includes expanding without any production facilities or making a third way too early, without the troops to defend it. This is very risky, because you will not be able to stop an early pressure.

GG - Good Game. Players type “GG” in the beginning of the game to wish a good game or in the end in order to say that the game was good.

GL HF – The short for “Good Luck Have Fun”. Players type this at the start of a game to show good manners.

Gosu - The Korean for PRO or a very skilled player.

H

Harass – Fast, stealth attacks whose purpose is to destroy the other player’s economy.

Hard Counter – A strategy or a unit that is very powerful against another strategy or unit.

Hasu - The Korean for a mediocre player.

High Yield - The gold mineral patches on the map. You harvest more minerals per trip from these.

I

Imba – The short for “imbalanced”. If a strategy or a unit is so strong that it breaks the balance between the three races.

K

Kiting – A technique that if performed properly, causes your ranged units to retreat, while in the same time shoot. This way these units cannot be reached from the opponent’s melee units.

L

Lag – The delay in the internet connection. The lag can cause slow response times and even disconnects.

Late-game – A phase when the game has progressed past the 20-minute mark. By this time the players should have more than 4 bases and a lot of last-tier units.

M

Manner – The way you behave during the game. There two types of manner – good and bad.

Macro – Macro-management is technique of boosting the economy and training a large number of units simultaneously.

Map Control - The player’s vision of the map and the ability to deny the opponent from exploring the map.

Main – This is the player’s initial base.

Maxed Out - 200/200 supply.

MBS – An abbreviation for “Multiple Building Selection”. In StarCraft 2 you can select many buildings and train units. This was impossible in Brood War.

Mineral Line - The area where the workers harvest minerals and vespene gas.

Mid-game - A phase of the game when the players expand, make tier 2 units and start attacking each other more seriously.

Micro – Micro-management: individual control over your units. The goal is to inflict as much damage as possible, while in the same time dodging incoming damage.

Meat Shield - Tank. A single unit or a group of units with sole purpose of engaging the enemy’s units and absorbing as much damage as possible. This way the more vulnerable, ranged units can survive longer. Meat Shields are Zealots, Immortals, Ultralisks, Thors, etc.

Mechanics – This is the balance between the micro and the macro.

N

Natural – The closest mineral site to your main base.

Ninja Expansion - A hidden, distant expansion. These expansions are harder to defend, if scouted.

Newbie/Noob/Nub – A player without skill. This word is considered as Bad Manner.

O

OP – The short for Overpowered: a unit or a strategy is so strong that it breaks the balance between the three races.

Overkill – This happens when you attack a single unit with a large group of ranges units; the targeted unit has just died, but some of your units have fired once again. This effect happens with ranged units like Mutalisks, Stalkers or Marauders with visible attack.

Omega 6 pool – This is a standard 6 pool, performed by two or more players in a team game.

Opening - Your initial build order and units.

P

Push – Slow, but persistent move towards your opponent’s base.

Peon - The Peon is the Orc’s worker. In StarCraft 2, players often refer to the workers as Peons.

Proxy – This is a production building that is not located in your base. Players tend to build proxies in order to hide their development path from the opponent. Another strategy is to place the proxy near the enemy’s base; this way you shorten the travel distance for your units significantly.

Q

Queuing - The term of giving a curtain unit producing building orders to produce more units that it is capable of producing at this time. This is bad macro, because of these resources could be spent more efficiently at that moment.

R

Run by – This is an attack technique, where your main goal is to sneak some units inside your opponent’s base. You will most often see run-bys with Zerglings. The ultimate goal is to scout your tech structures and eventually kill some workers.

Reverse All Kill - This is term is used in team matches and clan battles, where one of the teams doesn’t have any wins, but the last standing player manages to beat all of the remaining opponents.

Rush - The act of making more production structures in the early stages of the game. This way your economy will develop slowly, but you will be able to gather a lot of troops and press your opponent really hard. Most rushes are not considered as All-Ins, so if it fails, you can still recover.

S

Scouting – This is an important technique in StarCraft 2 with one single goal – to reveal the opponent’s plans. This is done by using special abilities like the Command Center’s Scan or by sending in units like workers.

Saturate – To use the most efficient number of workers in a given mineral line. Generally, the saturation rate comes at 22-24 workers for the minerals and 6-7 for the gas.

SimCity – Building placement with the sole purpose to stop early rushed and/or creates artificial choke points.

Snipe - Focusing a single unit on the battlefield with all your units in order to kill it instantly.

Spooning - Killing your opponent very slowly, like you are beating him/her with a spoon.

Starving Out - Preventing the opposing player from expanding. This is achieved by multiple attacks in a short time frame. The final goal is to force the opponent to make combat units until his/her mineral patches deplete.

Static Defense – All the towers in the game - Photon Cannon/Missile Turret/Spore Crawler/Spine Crawler, even the Bunker.

Sharking - This term was invented by the pro player iNcontrol (Team Evil Geniuses). When you are playing against a Zerg opponent, attack him/her many times; this way you will force the enemy to switch from Droning to mutating combat units. This greatly messes up with the Zerg’s development.

Supply Block – You will get supply blocked, if you forget to build a Supply Depot/Pylon/Overlord and the current supply does not allow you to train any more units.

T

Timing Attack - An attack that takes place at a specific time window, when the opponent is less likely to be able to defend.

Timing Window – A specific period in the game, when an attack will have great success against your opponent.

Toss – The short for Protoss.

Turtling – A state where a given player has gathered all of his forces to defend his/her base. There are no scouts and no counter forces anywhere on the map.

T1, T2, T3 - The construction tiers in StarCraft 2

1. For Terran T1 is the Barracks, T2 is the Factory and T3 is the Starport.
2. For Protoss T1 is the Gateway, T2 can be the Robotics Facility, the Stargate or Twilight Council and T3 are the Dark Shrine/Templar Archives/Robotics Bay/Fleet Beacon.
3. For the Zerg T1 is the Spawning Pool, T2 is the Lair and T3 is the Hive.

The units’ tiers correspond to the tier of their own production structure.

W

W/L - Win/Loss ratio

WP - Well Played. This is typically typed in the end of the game by the defeated party to show good manner and respect for the other player.

Worker Rush - The act of sending all of your workers in the enemy’s base straight from the start of the game. This is an all-in cheese.

Wall-in – Building structures on a choke point in order to completely block the entrance. This way you can defend from run-bys and cheesy early game rushes.

Z

Zerg - Non-Zerg player that produces a large force of low tier units only.

Tournament Definitions

MLG - Major League Gaming

IEM - Intel Extreme Masters

NASL - North American Star League

HSC - HomeStory Cup

GSTL - Global StarCraft 2 Team League presented by GOMTV.

IPL - IGN Pro League

GSL - Global StarCraft 2 League presented by GOMTV.

TSL - Team Liquid Starleague

DH - DreamHack