Reference
Esports glossary
The words that appear in our rounds and reference pages, defined the way the scene actually uses them. Most of them explain why a quiz round is easier or harder than it looks — a rebrand, a role change or an event tier.
- AnchorCounter-Strike, VALORANT
- A player whose job is to hold a bombsite alone or with minimal help while the rest of the team plays elsewhere. Anchors rarely produce highlight statistics, which is why some of the most important players on title-winning rosters are also the hardest to guess.
- Bot laneLeague of Legends
- The two-player side of the map where the marksman and the support play together. Because they queue as a pair, bot lanes often transfer as a unit — Bang and Wolf, Gumayusi and Keria — which makes them a reliable way to date a roster.
- Champion (roster sense)All
- In our line-up rounds, the five players who actually competed at the event under that organisation's name. Substitutes who did not play and benched players are excluded.
- DuelistVALORANT
- The agent role responsible for taking the first fight. Duelists get the individual acclaim and the transfer fees, and because the role is patch-sensitive they change teams more often than any other role.
- Elite eventAll
- The events we count when grading how well known a player is: Majors in Counter-Strike, Masters and Champions in VALORANT, Worlds and MSI in League of Legends. A player with no elite-event appearance never appears in a round.
- FranchisingLeague of Legends, VALORANT
- A league structure with a fixed set of partnered organisations and no relegation. It makes careers longer and rosters more stable, which is why our easy tier is much larger in League of Legends than in Counter-Strike.
- In-game leader (IGL)Counter-Strike, VALORANT
- The player who calls the team's strategy during the match. Leaders often move between organisations and take players with them, so recognising an IGL is usually the fastest way to reconstruct the rest of a line-up.
- JungleLeague of Legends
- The position played between the lanes, controlling neutral objectives and deciding where the early game happens. Jungler-and-mid pairings are among the most stable partnerships in the game.
- MajorCounter-Strike
- A developer-funded world championship, historically held once or twice a year. Majors are the only Counter-Strike titles the scene treats as permanent, and the only ones we count when grading difficulty.
- MastersVALORANT
- An international mid-season tournament. Masters titles are elite but sit below Champions historically, and because there are several per season the same organisation can appear twice in a year with different players.
- MSILeague of Legends
- The Mid-Season Invitational, the shorter international event played mid-year. It counts as an elite appearance in our archive even though it rarely predicts who wins Worlds.
- RebrandAll
- A change of organisation name without a change of roster: Samsung Galaxy to KSV to Gen.G, Royal Club to Royal Never Give Up, SK Telecom T1 to T1. Rebrands are the most common reason a line-up round looks impossible when it is not.
- Roster lockAll
- The deadline after which a team cannot change players for a tournament. It is the reason a line-up is a fixed historical object: the five names on a trophy are the five who were locked in.
- Stand-inAll
- A temporary player used when a regular is unavailable. Stand-ins are excluded from our line-ups unless they actually played the event, because a round should reflect who was on the server.
- StreakEsportsQuiz
- The number of consecutive days you have completed The Daily. Streaks reset at midnight UTC, so the day boundary is the same for every player regardless of time zone.
- Tier-S appearanceEsportsQuiz
- One appearance by a player at an elite event. We count them per player and use the total to place them in the easy, medium or hard pool — more appearances means more familiar, and fewer points when you guess correctly.
- WorldsLeague of Legends
- The League of Legends World Championship, held every year since 2011. It is the most complete historical record in esports and the backbone of our League line-up rounds.