Contest
Staying on the objective under numerical disadvantage to stall the enemy's guaranteed progress or win.
The act of buying time until teammates respawn after losing a fight. One player with escape tools — a Ball / Lucio / Kiriko type — stays behind and holds the objective radius while eating damage. The number of seconds you can contest for is exactly the grace period the respawning group gets to regroup, and it decides whether you meet the next fight 5v5. Reset with the whole team and leave no stall-capable hero behind, and you concede the progress or the win outright. The inverse failure is just as common: fixating on the contest, getting staggered, and losing all your resources for the next fight. Solo stall is the smallest unit of a contest, and it is the execution layer of overtime management.
Right after falling back from a fight, when 1-2 players are alive short of a wipe. Respawn distance is short and teammates are back in another 5-10 seconds. Designate a mobile Ball / Lucio / Kiriko as the contest player in advance.
The contest player burns their escape CDs, goes down, and the progress goes through anyway. A player who over-commits to the contest gets staggered, can't make the next fight, and it becomes 4v5.
Fight Reset
Choosing to disengage from a stalled or losing fight in order to rebuild formation, cooldowns, and HP.
Stagger
Delaying an enemy kill so they respawn out of sync with their team for the next fight.
Overtime Management
Deciding whether to extend overtime with a touch or force the enemy off the objective to end it — a time-resource play.
Forced Touch
Committing at least one player to touch the objective moments before time or overtime expires, buying one more fight.
Solo Stall
The last surviving player staying on the objective to single-handedly stall progress until teammates respawn and return.
Tempo
The initiative — who gets to choose when and on whose terms the next fight starts.