Trading Card Game Terminology for Dummies

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Learn How to Play Vanguard
Learn How to Play Vanguard

The terminology of trading card games (TCGs) is very complex and can be considered its very own language. The terms are categorized into specific groups withing the TCG community in order for you to have a better understanding of future posts and the community itself.

 

General

  • Card Advantage: Term commonly used to describe how many more cards you have control of over your opponent.
  • Salt: When you or your opponent is upset at the game; “I sacked my opponent and he was salty.”
  • Tilt: When you progressively start playing poorly due to being salty; “I was tilted after I got sacked last round.”
  • Chase rare: A card that is most valuable in a set of cards and is highly sought after by the masses; “The holographic Charizard is a chase rare and it’s worth $1 billion.”
  • Godpack: A pack of cards that contain the most sought after cards in a set; “It must be my lucky day, I just got a godpack.”
  • RNG/Variance: Describes the luck factors of a game.
  • Discard Pile/Graveyard/Drop Zone: A zone where cards go after they are destroyed or pitched.

Deck Building

  • Overpowered/Underpowered: Overpowered is used to refer to a card that is better than average, while under-powered is referred to a card that is below average.
  • Broken: Referred to a card or combination of cards that is so strong that it literally breaks the game.
  • Nerf/Buff: Nerf is to make a card or deck worse, while a buff is used to make a card or deck better.
  • Powercreep: When the next generation of cards are marginally better than the previous ones; “My deck used to be really good, but then it got powercreeped.”
  • Rotation: When a certain set of card are taken out of the standard game mode and is replaced with newer ones; “My deck is no longer usable in the standard game mode because half the cards got rotated out.”
  • Aggro: Short for aggressive, when a deck’s only focus is offense. Tends to win games in a shorter amount of time.
  • Control: When a deck aims to draw out the match as long as possible. Tends to win the long game.
  • Midrange/Tempo: Jack of all trades, master of none. Their power plays are more towards the middle of the game.
  • Combo: A deck that requires specific cards to make a power play.
  • Solitaire: A deck that does not require you to interact with your opponent.
  • Win-con: Short for win condition, a deck’s plan to attain victory.
  • Net-Deck: Copying someone else’s deck card-by-card. It is usually a practice looked down upon.
  • Tech: Specific card(s) that you would add to a deck for an advantage, not typically played by the majority; “My opponent didn’t see my spicy tech coming, and it won me the match.”
  • Hate Card: A sub-type of a tech. A card that you would add to a deck in order to specifically counter another deck; “My opponent knew he would be playing me so he added a hate card to his deck.”
  • Engine/Core: A group of cards that work to optimize a deck.
  • Archetype/Sub-Clan: A group of cards that are made to be  optimized when used together.
  • Meta: The decks that are the strongest in a period of time; “I have a higher chance to win because my deck is meta.”

In-Game

  • Draw: Drawing or to draw is to take the top card of your deck and put it into your hand.
  • High-roll/Low-roll:  In TCGs, a high-roll play is a play that has a high risk but has a small percent chance of yielding a high reward. Low rolling has little to no risk with a high chance at success but doesn’t reward you as much, and it’s simply playing it safe.
  • Brick:  This term is used when you have the inability to progress to your deck’s win condition with the current cards in hand; “I had a rough match since I bricked my first game.”
  • Sack(ed): When something luck based happens that that turns the tide of a game around; “I just got sacked! My opponent just drew the exact card he needed.”
  • Mulligan: At the start of a game you are able to return unwanted cards from your starting hand to your deck and draw back a certain amount of cards from the deck.  This allows you to have a greater chance of drawing cards you want.
  • Stack(ing): Is a term used for when a player deliberately controls the order of the cards in the deck outside the rules of the game.
  • Cut(ing): After a deck is looked through and shuffled, the opponent has the right to “cut” the deck, as in taking the top half of the deck and putting it at the bottom. This is to help prevent the opponent from cheating.
  • OTK/FTK: OTK stand for “one turn kill” where in the player wins the game in one turn. FTK stands for “first turn kill” and is a step-up from OTK as in the player wins the game on their first turn.
  • Mill: To take cards from the top of your deck and put it into the graveyard, drop zone or discard pile.
  • Burn: To deal damage to your opponent with out the need to attack them.
  • Mirror: Is commonly referred to a match where both players are playing the exact same deck. These can either be enjoyed and considered skillful or tedious and un-enjoyable.
  • Card Advantage:
  • Destroy/Board Wipe: Sending your opponent’s cards to the discard pile. Board wipe means to do destroy all your opponent’s cards leaving their board empty.
  • Banish/Bind/Exile: To take a card out of the game completely.
  • Deck-out: When you no longer have cards to draw from your deck. This usually lead to some kind of penalty for the player.
  • Tapped/Un-tapped: To indicate the state of a card. If a card is in a sideways position (tapped) it has been used. If a card is right side up (un-tapped) it can be used.
  • Spin: To put a card back into the deck.
  • Cost: A requirement that needs to be met in order for a card’s skill/ability to be used.
  • Misplay: For a player to perform an action in the game that is generally considered a poor decision; “I would have won that game if it wasn’t for my misplay.”
  • Pitch/Discard: To take a card from hand and put it into the discard pile.
  • Face: To deal damage to your opponent directly.
  • Eat: To destroy or banish your own cards.
  • Search: To add specific card(s) from your deck to your hand or board.
  • Cheese: Something that would under normal circumstances would not work but ends up working, usually leading to a win; “I thought I lost but then I cheesed my opponent.”
  • Hexproof: When a card is immune to other card’s skills/effects.
  • The Nuts/Godhand/Exodia: To have the best cards possible in hand; “I knew I won the game the moment I drew my opening hand, it was the nuts.”
  • Scoop: To pick up all your cards in a scooping motion and forfeit the match. “My opponent drew the nuts so I just scooped.

Tournament

  • X-1/X-2…: The “X” refers to the amount of wins you have in a tournament, while the the other number refers to your loses; “Person A: How are your rounds going? (never ask this question)
    Person B: I’m currently X-1.”
  • Bye: Happens when there is a odd number of participants in a tournament. A player has no opponent and receives a free win.
  • Weight: A numerical representation of whom you’ve won and lost against in the middle of a tournament.
  • Seed: A numerical representation of how good a player is based on weight.
  • Top Cut: After a certain amount of rounds in a tournament, there is a top cut in which the players with the highest weight advance.
  • Scrubbed Out: When you do not have enough wins to make it into the top cut; “I went X-3 and scrubbed out.”
  • Bubble-In/Bubble-Out: Bubbling in is to have the bare minimum amount of weight to make it in to the top cut, while bubbling out means to have almost have the bare minimum wait to make it to top cut; “I went X-1 but still managed to bubble out of top cut.”

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