Anchor/Anchoring

This slang references having a player sitting at a specific position on the map, usually on the defense side and on their own. The term 'anchor' is used because the player is keeping their team anchored down in that area, preventing enemies from flan💖king or getting free space.

Any agent can anchor, but it is usually reserved for the Sentinel agents as they can cover more s🐟pace and slow down enemies with abilities such as tripwires 💙and alarm bots.

Bait

Due to how fights happen in Valorant, the verb bait (to bait, baiting) refers to when a player uses either their gun or abilities to start a fight to get them to push you. This effectivel🉐y baits the opponent into playing aggressively and can give the original shooter the advantage of a bait.

This isn't the only explanation though, as teammates can bait each other by starting a fight as described above, making it look like they are engaging, but instead backing up and putting their teammates in danger. If you hear a teammate calling you or someone else a 'baiter' in a negative fashion, it's likely due to some indecision in a fight that led to that moment.

Contact

The term ‘contact’ means to purposefully move into an area and fight without using any utility. This can be very handy if coꦇmbined with moving quietly as if enemies aren’t at the location, t💧here is nothing to give away that you have moved in.

Cooldown (CD)

In Valorant, you have certain abilities you can only use a limited amount in every round. Depending on the ability, there is a chance that in a round the ability can be on cooldown, meaning that it can be re-used, but after a specific time has passed.

If an abilꦑity can be used again, but you're waiting for it to come back onlin🌱e, then it's on cooldown or CD for short.

Cubby/Corner

This is relatively straightforward, as these are location callouts. When someone says an enemy or piece of utility is a cubby or corner, that means they are in a location nearby either tucked into a hidden spot or a corner.

This can seem very ꦜbroad, but alongsid൲e a direction like left or right and pings from allies, it can help your team clear out sites.

Default

This is another tactical shooter term, and if you're playing ranked on the attack side, you'll hear this often. Default is another verb (to default, defaulting) that means playing a specific kind of attack setup where nobody commits to any strategy.

Instead, this setup relies on finding out information ab🔴out the enemy team and reacting ac🍷cordingly. Defaulting can be very handy against teams that play an aggressive defense, or against teams that rotate very early on.

Dink/Dinked

A dink in Valorant means a headshot, due to the noise the game makes when someone has been head🧸shot. Usually, letting someone know an enemy has been dinked means that they've been hit in the head, so they have low health and can be gunned down easily.

Since each gun has a different amount of damage output for a headshot, letting an ally know someone has bee꧃n hurt is always useful, especially if they're very low.

Double Up/Double Swing

One of the smartest ways to take duels or hold angles against enemies in tactical shooters is to have a teammate very close by to either help you kill someone shooting you or🍨 to just gun down anything that comes your way.

Whether on defense or attack, when someone calls to double up, it means to move close to your nearby teammate and hold an angle or location.

Then, on the aggressive side, double swinging means getting close to an ally and moving together around a corner or wall to secure🍎 a kill.

Eco/Economy

In Valorant, having the credits to buy guns every round is crucial.🤪 The amount of money you have changes based on a multitude of factors, but it whittl♈es down to three things: how much you spent in the previous round, how many kills you got in the previous round, and if your team won the round.

When players talk about the economy, they are talking about what guns players can afford either currently or in the future.

As for when ♌players call for eco or eco rounds, that means ൲a team is specifically buying guns to buy less for now so they can afford better guns in the future.

Entry/Exit (Entry Fragger/Exit Fragger)

With how the game works, Valorant is defined by short moments of engagement. When a team fights another, specific roles should be not only using their abilities well but positioning themselves accordingly to get the most value and secure a round win.

Fake

On the attack side, the term fake refers to attacking a site and selling it to the enemy that the first attack is where your whole team is, while instead using that as a distraction to get onto another site. Thi𒈔s is especially prevalent on three-site maps like Haven or Lotus, as the defense has to cover a lot more ground.

Feed/Feeding

This term is common in lots of competitive video games. Feed is a verb (to feed, feeding), and in this case, it means to either purposefully or unintentionally die with no other purpose other than to give your opponents an advantage.

In Valorant, this usually means that the player is pe♛rforming poorly or intentionally trying to lose by running into enemies and giving them more resource♊s.

Flank

This term is one of the simplest in the game. Flank just means that an enemy is getting behind your team, trying to get kills to secure the round. The callout ‘flanking’ can also be used to draw that attention, but can also mean that someone on your team is getting behind the enemies.

Flash/Flashbang

A flash, or flashbang, is an ability in Valorant that blinds opponents for a short time. When a teammate calls this term out, they’re usually about🐭 to use their flash to blind their opponents. If someone calls out “I’m flashed”, that means they’re bl🍌inded.

Frag/Fragging

In Valorant, the term frag can either refer to a kill or the process of killing enemies. Fragging can also ꧂be use🔥d as a compliment, referring to someone hitting their shots often.

Heaven/Hell

Heaven simply refers to an area of the map that is higher than the main elevation. Hell refers to anꦏ area underneath anoth♌er area, so players can distinguish whether someone is in a location above or below on a minimap.

IGL

An IGL is an acronym for in-game leader, which refers to which player on your team is making the key decisions of where to go and what to do across the game. Not every team has one, but the ones who do kno𝕴w who is in charge.

Long/Short

This refers to distances in chaotic situations to assist allies. If someone calls that an enemy or piece of utility is long, it means that it is at the end of a long hallway.

Instead, if they call short, it means they were last seen close by, either around a nearby corner or just somewhere nearby ahead.

Lurk

Lurk is a similar term to flank, but it is different as the goal isn’t always to get behind opponents to kill them. Lurking players usually are there to gain information on their opponents, clear sites after enemies have rotated away,💎 and try and g🌌et kills on unexpecting enemies.

Molly

Molly is short for molotov, a damage-over-time grenade from other tactical shooters. In Valorant, every grenade-like ability does damage-over-time, so they are all referred to🎀 as mollys instead. Players distinguish the different kinds of mollys by saying their agent head of♌ it: KJ molly, Phoenix molly, KAY/O molly, and so on.

One-Way

This refers to when a smoke is dropped in a specific location so it gives a significant advantage to one side and not the other. These smokes can be dropped to assist attack or defense, but they are differently placed than the smokes players use just to block off sightlines from enemies.

Usually, a one-way smoke is placed on an object near an opening so that it covers part of the entryway, but not the whole thing. This means that players close to the smoke can’t see anything, but players who are further away canꦐ see the feet or lower body of opponents and use that♒ to shoot around where their heads are.

Peek/Jump Peek

A peek refers to when someone looks around a corner with the expectation to duel an opponent or gain information, whether one is there or n꧃ot. This is different from a swing, as a swing means the player fully moves out towards th❀e open area to contact and shoot opponents.

A peek is a lot slower, usually just meಞant to gain information and not move too far.

A jump peek is a variation of the peek where the player jumps to peek a corner with their knife ꩲout, but turns around before they land back to a safe spot. For enemies, they only spot the peek for a split second, while the jump makes the peeker harder to hit.

Plant/Post-Plant

The term plant is when a spike is planted in the ground, starting the bomb 🌃for the attacking side. Post-plant refers to the time when the spike is planted, so the defense has a limited time left to defuse the spike.

Retake

The term retake refers to trying to reclaim an area of the map, either using utility ♒or just duels to retake the space. This is often used for post-plant scenarios, as a planned retake can make what seem like difficult fights easy.

Shift-Walk

This term refers to a way that players can walk around the map slower than normal, but without making any noise. Normally, the key on the keyboard that does this is the Shift key, which gives it it♏s name.

Split

This is also the name of a map, so just make sure you know that this is different. The term ‘split’ in-game is to split the team up, usually to cover a lot of space and make enemies have to fight duels on multiple fronts. Thi🐼s term is often used on♔ attack, but splitting on defense can work too.

Stack

The term ‘stack’ refers to how your team positions on the defensive side. The term usually coincides with a number: one stack, two stack, five stack, and so on. Stacking a🦩 site means your team is focusing on defending that site stronger than others, usually planning to retake other sites.

Thrifty

A thrifty round refers to when one team defeats another team with a significant weapon and economic disadvantage.

Wall

A wall can refer to an actual wall in the map, but more often, it refers to specific smokes that split sections of the map in two instead of the traditional circular smokes that other age♓nts offer. The two key agents that have wall smokes are Viper and Harbor.

Wallbang

A wallbang refers to when a shot goes through a penetrable surface, usually en🍌ding with a kill if enough bullets hit an opponent. Specific guns have more bullet penetration than oth🤪ers, which you can see when purchasing them in the store, but wallbangs are most common with the Odin and Vandal.