#Macro

Two or more players take turns drawing aggro, scattering enemy aim and burning support cooldowns.

Non-committal pressure designed to extract enemy reactions and cooldowns without taking a fight.

Pre-fight phase where all 5 players align positions, sightlines, and retreat routes before engaging.

Two or more shooters hitting the same target from divergent angles so no single piece of cover blocks both.

Spending a minor cooldown to force a major defensive one, netting an advantage for the real fight.

High-mobility composition that bursts down enemy supports and disengages immediately.

Long-range composition that whittles HP from afar, builds ult charge, and forces the enemy to commit first.

Brawl composition that stacks close-range damage and sustain to overwhelm the enemy before they can respond.

Long-game management of team ult economy across fights — engineering favorable trades every round.

Forcing the enemy to spend an ultimate on empty space or a low-value target.

Delaying an enemy kill so they respawn out of sync with their team for the next fight.

Choosing to disengage from a stalled or losing fight in order to rebuild formation, cooldowns, and HP.

The initiative — who gets to choose when and on whose terms the next fight starts.

Physical control over the favorable parts of the map — high ground, routes, sightlines.

Holding a defensive formation pushed into enemy territory to disrupt their regroup.

Pressuring the enemy from two directions at once, splitting their sightlines and escape routes.

Taking a secondary route to enter the enemy backline or blind spots.

A chain of staggers where one team can't regroup, losing 2–3 fights in a row before recovering.

A solo kill before or at the start of a fight that gives your team a numbers advantage going in.

Multiple players converging from different angles to instantly surround and eliminate one target.

Switching heroes to directly counter an enemy pick and nullify their advantage.

A call that designates which single enemy to focus, aligning the whole team's damage.

Shifting the entire team's focus to a new target when the original call gets saved.

The stalemate phase where neither side commits, and both fight only over space, information, and cooldowns.

Outnumbering the surviving enemy (e.g. 5v4). The baseline from which all fight risk is calculated.

Tracking when key enemy defensive cooldowns (Suzu, Lamp, Fade) were used and when they come back.

The rock-paper-scissors relationship between Dive, Poke, and Brawl that shapes drafting decisions.

One player slipping behind enemy lines to touch or cap an objective while they focus on the fight.

The critical 99% moment in KOTH/Flashpoint where a single contest call can force overtime and reset the win.

A support pick like Ana, Zen, or Bap whose damage output, debuffs, or utility swing fights beyond healing.

The structural edge defenders hold through shorter respawn distance, known sightlines, and pre-held positions.

The gap between each team's respawn point and the fight zone, determining post-fight tempo and how far a winning side can push.

Team-wide movement to the next objective or power position, where arrival order and cohesion determine the edge.

Deciding whether to extend overtime with a touch or force the enemy off the objective to end it — a time-resource play.

The remaining time the attacking team carries into the next round, determining how many fights both sides can afford.

Splitting the team into two lanes to pressure the enemy from multiple directions simultaneously, dividing their sightlines and attention.

Using ability or ult threat to deny access to an area, narrowing the enemy's movement options without necessarily landing damage.

The core scenario through which a composition or situation wins a fight — combo, first pick, sustain, etc.

Controlling health pack pickups to cut off the enemy's passive recovery and force them into a sustained deficit.

A support role — Lúcio, Mercy, Brig — focused on area healing, mobility boosts, and formation tempo rather than damage output.

A composition built around peel — Brig, Lucio, etc. — that turns the enemy's dive into a one-way trip.

Tickling the enemy with damage to observe whether their supports react with heals — reading backline attention and resources.

Landing a light debuff first to drain the enemy's cleanse (Suzu, Fade, etc.), then following up with the real payload.

Staggering defensive cooldowns across time instead of spending them simultaneously, sustaining the team through multiple burst windows.

Separating one enemy from their team's heals and cover to force an isolated 1v1 situation.

Re-entering the same fight immediately after a disengage, exploiting the window when the enemy has burned through CDs and ultimates.

Committing resources or position to a depth you can't retreat from, leaving no viable escape or follow-up.

An ultimate used to save teammates and reset a losing fight rather than to secure kills — Transcendence, Sound Barrier, Tree of Life, and similar.

Initiating a fight intentionally without ultimates to force the enemy to spend one or more ults, rebalancing the economy even in defeat.

Control of the map's bottleneck — whichever team owns the choke point dictates the terms of the round's opening.

Deliberately preventing or opening long sightlines through positioning and cover to dictate where the enemy's hitscans and snipers can operate.

Deliberately forcing a death — your own or the enemy's — to break a stalemate and reset the fight's momentum.

Whether the resource you spent — ult, cooldown, HP, or time — generated a return equal to or greater than the investment.

Deliberately surrendering the current point or map progress to reset at a more favorable position.

After a decisive fight win, pushing forward to the enemy respawn zone and picking off enemies as they emerge one by one.

The last surviving player staying on the objective to single-handedly stall progress until teammates respawn and return.

Real-time verbal calls that synchronize when to engage, disengage, and align ultimates — translating information into action for the whole team.

The player with final tactical authority in-game — setting the macro strategy and unifying all calls.

Staying on the objective under numerical disadvantage to stall the enemy's guaranteed progress or win.

Stepping onto a point the enemy controls in a Control map to halt their percentage gain and flip ownership to your side.

Committing at least one player to touch the objective moments before time or overtime expires, buying one more fight.

The race to reach the objective first at the start of a KOTH round or Flashpoint point opening, establishing early control.

The final defensive stand on a Payload or Hybrid map, where the defending team's respawn advantage peaks.

A forward respawn point that unlocks when the payload or team robot crosses a checkpoint, sharply closing the respawn gap.

Using the current KOTH percentage gap to decide whether to force a fight or stall — the KOTH equivalent of time-bank management.

The attacking sequence of investing ultimates, cooldowns, or formation changes to force open a choke the defenders have locked down.

The distinction between the direct route to the objective (main lane) and the flanking or high-ground alternatives (flank lanes).

A composition that blends elements of multiple archetypes rather than committing fully to Dive, Brawl, or Poke.

A defensive setup that protects a high-damage dealer like Bastion behind shields and defensive cooldowns, fortifying one position.

An attacking gimmick that places a high-damage dealer like Bastion on the payload and advances it under shield and pocket heal protection.

Sharing the target's remaining HP so the whole team knows the kill is one shot away — synchronizing the finishing burst.

A pre-engage confirmation step that verifies all five players have their cooldowns, positions, and readiness aligned before committing.

A support player taking an angle away from the main formation to add a crossfire sightline while forcing the enemy to split dive attention.

A standoff where both teams' healing output exceeds incoming damage, preventing kills and prolonging the fight until the balance breaks.