A Glossary Of Esports Terms

 Esports has its own vocabulary, which you will no doubt learn over time. But in case you’re new to the industry, here are some of the most important esports terms:

Pub

A pub is any public game or match. You’ll often hear the expression pub star. People use it to refer to talented players who have not proved themselves in professional tournaments but look promising because of their performance in pubs.

GGWP

This is the abbreviation of “good game, well played”. Sometimes you’ll see it used simply as “GG”. People sometimes spam it in frustration during games, but in professional matches, it is used at the end of the game to congratulate your opponent. The team that GGs practically admits defeat.

GLHF

GLHF stands for “good luck, have fun!” and unlike GGWP, it is used at the start of a game.

Talent

These are the people you most often see and hear ahead of, during and after the games of a professional tournament. They are casters, analysts, observers, producers, and hosts, whose job is to make the action provided by the players more entertaining and easier to understand.

Elo/MMR

These are equivalent terms and they refer to a player’s rank. A high Elo or MMR (matchmaking rating) signifies that you’re a strong player in pub games. Every esport has a ranking system and the more you win, the higher you climb.

In MOBA games like League of Legends and Dota 2, Elo and MMR points have medals or divisions associated with them. A Dota 2 player with 5200 MMR is said to compete in the Divine division. This is visually communicated inside the game via the icon that symbolizes this division.

MVP

MVP stands for “most valuable player”. This is applied to either a match or a tournament.

Org

This is an abbreviation for the word “organization”. You’ll often hear the expression esports org. Just know that it means esports organization, not a .org website.

Prize Pool

In esports, the total amount of money offered in prizes at a tournament is called prize pool.

Scrim

Teams are said to scrim against each other when they train. Scrims are nothing else than practice matches.

Toxic

This term refers to a player’s attitude or words. If you’re toxic, it means you’re rude to your teammates and even adversaries.

Another expression used here is trash talk. When people insult each other or say things designed to trigger someone, they are trash talking.

LAN

This is the abbreviated form of “Local Area Network”. Tournaments that happen in a certain location with all the teams present are often called LANs.

Split

This is another way of saying “part of a season or professional circuit”. For example, each season of League of Legends has two splits: the Spring Split and the Summer Split. These are two separate competitions and each of them lasts several months.

Minor / Major

These are the standard tournament tiers in esports. Minors are esports events of lower importance while Majors are right below world championships. In some cases, such as in CS:GO, Majors are the world championships.

Observer

When you watch a professional esports event, everything you see on the screen is decided by one or more observers. Because esports matches are usually played in a team versus team format, you can watch the action from multiple angles. Observers are there to figure out which are the most interesting bits at any given moment.

Ping

This is the latency that people experience when playing online. The lower it is, the better. If you have a high ping, you risk being behind the action, in the sense that things will happen in the real game but you’ll only find out about them a fraction of a second later. In some games, such as CS:GO, that fraction of a second is critical.

 Setup

The most common use of this term is in association with PCs. The notion is also used to refer to the preparation that takes place before a match. However, this phase is more often called the “drafting phase” (in MOBAs) or simply “the preparation”.

Stream

Any live video broadcast on Twitch, YouTube, Facebook, or other platforms.