StarCraft 2 Glossary of Terms

starcraft-2

I see a lot of words flying about when talking about StarCraft 2 strategies. Things like Rush, Timing, Contain, Push, 6Pool, Cheese… It would be quite helpful to have a list of the accepted vocabulary in one place.

What are the common terms used when talking about StarCraft 2 strategies and playstyles, and what do they mean?

Here are a compilation of the answers:

  • Build Order: A rough plan for which structures and units to get in the early part of a game. Build order's seldom extend past engagement with the enemy, but will sometimes account for likely transitions later in the gam.
  • Economy: The units, structures and positioning used for gathering Minerals/Vespene Gas (or any other resource in other RTSes)
  • Macro: The process of continually producing offensive units, or the unit producing structures that allow you to make those units.
  • Micro: The process of precisely controlling the units of an attack force to do the most damage possible. For instance, this could be focus firing on high value units in the opposing army, or moving ranged units just out of range of melee units.
  • Unit Composition: the different types of attack units in an army. An army is said to have good unit composition if the different types of units synergise well together, each one covering the shortcomings of the other.
  • Transition or Tech Switch: changing the unit composition of your army to adapt to your opponent's weaknesses.
  • Map control: Being in a position strategically where you are able to move your units and get view of a larger area of the map than your opponent. Having Map control is advantageous because it allows you respond to enemy troop movements before they reach your vulnerabilities, and deny your opponent's expansions while having free access to them yourself.
  • Meatball: Marine Marauder Medivacs combination
  • Tier: Units in which level of tech
  • Going Tech: going for tier 1.5 – 2 – 3 units
  • Rax: Short for barracks an early Terran structure for producing infantry
  • Gate: Short for Gateway or Warpgate, and early Protoss unit producing structure
  • Pool: Short for Spawning Pool, the building required for Zerg to build Zerglings
  • Ovi: Short for Overlord, a unit which supplies Zerg

Acronyms:

  • gl: "Good Luck"
  • hf: "Have Fun"
  • gg: "Good Game". This is the usual way to concede defeat.
  • mmm: See Meatball above
  • T: Terran
  • Z: Zerg
  • P: Protoss

Best Answer

Above the very lowest leagues, most players are very polite. They are also very terse. Some common abbreviations are used in chat for a friendly (though fiercely competitive) match.

The following expressions are often used at the beginning of a match.

  • gl: "Good Luck"
  • hf: "Have Fun"

The following expressions are often used at the conclusion of a match.

  • gg: "Good Game". This is the usual way to concede defeat.
Related Topic