Riot Games took some heavy inspiration from Counter-strike when they tried to give their own spin into the whole tactical 5v5 shooter genre.
As such all the players who already played CS in any shape or form are interested to see what Riot brought to the table. As a result, more people will use common counter-strike terminologies to communicate with each other in-game. Since CSGO and VALORANT have so much in common, it is usually preferable to use these call-outs in-game.
However, a lot of people do not come from a Counter-Strike background. Therefore some players are having difficulties understanding some of the most common call-outs in CSGO. This list is tailor-made for those beginners who are entering into VALROANT as their first entry into the tactical shooter genre.
anti-eco – Round where you know the enemy team is on a save or light buy round
full save – Don’t buy anything, the team is very poor.
force buy – When you don’t have enough money for the best buy, but you still want to spend all of your money on gear.
stack – Putting more than the normal amount of players on one bombsite. Risky play that is commonly seen on save rounds, in an attempt to gain the upper hand.
rotate – Leaving the area that you’re attacking/defending and moving to another area to support your team.
CT spawn/T spawn – CT = Defender, T = Attacker. It will be much much easier if you say attacker/defender, but CSGO diehards will be saying CT and T for a while.
baiting – When you do not push with your teammate(s) and instead wait for them to be killed to reveal enemy positions.
trade kill/refrag – Immediately trading death for a kill. Example: teammate is getting shot and dies, you’re standing next to him but aren’t exposed, you should peek and kill the enemy while he’s killing your teammate. Don’t let them have a 5v4, make it a 4v4 immediately.
double-peek – Two teammates peeking the same angle at the exact same time, in order to get a trade kill on whoever is holding the angle. Typically one player will wide peek.
wide-peek – Purposefully running past the enemy’s crosshair placement before counter-strafing to fire at him. If an enemy knows you’re near a corner, chances are his crosshair is in a position to kill you if you peek and stop to shoot. Obviously it’s a risky move to swing so far out before stopping, but can be very effective when your enemy is holding their crosshair too close to the wall.
jiggle-peek/shoulder-peek – Peeking an angle as quickly as you can and going right back behind cover, just barely jiggling your body so that an enemy sees you and shoots, revealing their location, or to make them use an ability to stall you.
counter-strafe – Tapping the opposite move key to come to a stop immediately. When you are holding A to move left, and let go of A to stop, there is a short window of time where you are still moving after letting go of A. To prevent this and become accurate immediately, counter-strafe by tapping D quickly at the same time you let go of A. The same goes for any direction – tap the opposite direction you’re moving as you let go of the movement key, and you’ll immediately stop. (THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT IN CSGO, but not so much VALORANT, because you stop almost immediately anyways).
crossfire – A defensive stance where two teammates are lined up in a way that they’ll both see the enemy at the same time, making it extremely hard for a peeking enemy to take them out.
dink/goosh – Getting a headshot but the enemy doesn’t die, good for letting your team know that an enemy is low on HP.
lit/tagged/hit – If a player says “Viper lit 95“, it means they did 95 damage to the viper, letting you know that she’s low HP.
drop me – Buy me a weapon.
prefire – Shooting where you expect someone to be before actually seeing them (you heard them/intuition/etc).
heaven/under heaven – Heaven is a common callout for an elevated area such as the window above A site on Haven, or the catwalk area overlooking B on Split. Hell sometimes refers to the area directly underneath heaven.
play for picks/”default” – Common Attacker strategy where players spread out to watch for aggressive defenders, hold map control, bait out enemy utility, and potentially get an opening kill before grouping up to decide where to go. Organized teams will have their own ‘default‘ rounds though.
tap the bomb/fake defuse – Start defusing the bomb but immediately get off of it to look for an enemy. Important: don’t make footsteps after you tap the bomb, you want the enemy to think you’re sticking it!
stick the bomb – Defuse the bomb and Keep defusing. The common situation is a 2v1, your teammate will say “stick bomb“, telling you to defuse while he watches for the enemy to peek.
plant for x – Planting the bomb in a way that you can defend it from x. If someone says plant for heaven on Split Bombsite A, you need to make sure that they can see the bomb from heaven (don’t plant behind the box).
safe plant – Getting the bomb down in the safest way possible, not planted for anything specific. Usually means in a spot where you can’t be seen from any entryways onto the site.
default plant – Planting in the most common location for that bombsite. You’ll need to experience the maps to learn the most common spots.
play the bomb – If you hear your teammates say this they are trying to tell you that you do not need to play the post-plant aggressively and look for the retaking enemy. They are telling you to be passive and wait for the bomb/spike to get “tapped” to reveal the defender’s location.
play for time – There is not enough time for the enemy to plant/defuse the spike safely, but you could still lose the round if you offer yourself up as an easy kill to the enemy.
retake together – When your team is retaking a bombsite, don’t go in 1 by 1. If you’re ready to push in, but your teammate is flanking through attacker spawn or is coming late behind you, wait for him so that you can take the site together and trade.
number advantage – When your team has more players alive than the enemy team. While at an advantage you should play more safely/grouped and not let the enemy have 1v1 fights. While at a disadvantage you should be looking for ways to equalize, forcing enemies to fight alone.
glass cannon – Buying an Operator (or another expensive weapon) when you can’t afford armor with it.
Especial mention goes to u/StankyFPS, u/adoxographyadlibitum, u/Brettman17, u/CuddlySpartan, u/yoyowhatsupdog for making this list possible.
