We got a great suggestion from one of our readers suggesting that we do an article about common Star Wars Destiny Jargon, slang, common misconceptions and abbreviations. Once I started working on this article I discovered that some others had done some as well. I tried to not repeat all of the ones used but some I had already written out. The following are a couple of sites I found. If you are a content creator and made a similar list please send it this way and I will add it when I have time. My goal with this glossery is to have a place where new players can come and look up something that might confuse them when they are reading articles or reading chats/replies. I try my hardest to refrane from using slang and shorthand (unless I have already referenced a card) but sometimes I forget. In chats and replies people assume everyone knows what their lingo means. I want to thank everyone in the community who suggested things, you guys rock!

Other Destiny Jargon Glosseries Sites

SWD Terms

The Chance Cube Glossery

Commonly Used Abbreviations

AoE– Area of Effect. An effect that hits multiple characters.

AR– Armored Reinforcements.

BF– Battlefield

Character#– Sometimes people will write a character’s name with a number right after. This refers to the order of their printing. Rey3, for example, references to Rey, Bound by the Force.

CQA– Closed Quarters Assualt. This card was very popular when it was legal in Standard.

DM– Desperate Measures

e/Character or eCharacter– An “e” before a character’s name just means that the character is elite and starts with two of its character dice.

EMP– Electromagnetic Pulse

F– Fail, used in chats to describe a failed attempt.

FADM– Fear and Dead Men

FOST– First Order Stormtrooper

FTK– First Turn Kill. “I FTK’d her Kylo and it was an easy game after that.”

Noob– New Player

NPE– Negative Play Experience

OTK– One Turn Kill. A combo that will kill your opponent in one turn.

OP– Overpowered.

PA– Power Action

RIP– Rest in Peace. Usually used in chats to denote a failed attempt.

Archetypes

Big/Little– Describes the kind of deck that consists of an expensive character and a cheaper character. Something like elite Vader, Terror to Behold paired with single die Greedo is an example. Mileage varies on this and certain decks like elite Palpatine, Unlimited Power paired with elite Watto would also be considered Big/Little since it is building around Palpatine and once Palpatine dies they generally will lose.

Middle/Middle– This refers to two character pairings where they are roughly the same cost- like two 15s. The current iteration of Reylo is a perfect example.

Middle/Littles– Not a term used a ton but means a medium cost character, like 15, with two small characters like a 7 and an 8.

3 Wide– Three character teams.

4 Wide– Four character teams.

Control Deck– This is a deck that specializes in controlling its opponents assets – in this game it is generally removing opponent’s dice and destroying supports and upgrades. These decks give up an aggressive early game for a powerful late game.

Mid Range Deck- This is somewhere between a Control and an Aggro deck. A midrange deck would be a deck that is aggressive but has some defensive elements. Usually these decks don’t go as big as control and ramp decks, and some characters will have damage sides while others might not. Being able to produce a lot of shields while also having aggressive elements would lead me to call a deck midrange.

Aggro deck– This refers to decks where its starting characters and other cards are focused on dealing damage. Generally the cards in these decks will be inexpensive and most of the time the decks will have two characters.

Burn Deck– The refers to a deck that does a lot of damage outside of dice damage. A card like Ewok Warrior or Arena of Death are burn cards.

Ramp Deck– A deck that wants to generate a lot of resources and play powerful supports and/or upgrades.

Prison Deck– These kind of decks generally don’t exist but they try to stop your opponent from playing the game. An example of this was when you could play Hyperspace Jump off of Millennium Falcon1 by claiming Emperor’s Throne Room. When FFG released Planetary Uprising it added an automatic way to win the game.

Mill deck– Referred to also as a Deck Out deck. It wins by discarding all cards from its opponents hands and deck.

Net Deck– A deck someone copied off the internet.

Pet Deck– A deck a player likes. Sometimes derogatory as it implies it is off meta or a deck that is a still being fleshed out by the deck designer.

Rogue Deck– Deck that isn’t a usual metagame deck.

Toolbox Deck– A toolbox deck plays a few one ofs and generally has a way to search for/draw them when they are their most powerful. There haven’t really been any of these in Destiny.

Slang/Jargon

Action Cheating– It refers to taking multiple actions within a turn.

Brew or Homebrew– An off meta deck that is made without the reference of another. To brew, is to make one of these decks.

Board State– The state of the game. Usually used to describe a gamplay situation and the cards that were involved.

Board Presence– Having cards in play. If you have a strong board presence you have many cards in play and a weak one would be few.

Buff– To increase the power level of a card, deck or whatever “Buff” is describing.

Card Advantage– Having more cards than your opponent.

Claim Speed- How fast a deck is to claim the battlefield.

Durdle– Taking a lot of actions that slow the game down without necessarily advancing their win condition. A deck that inherently takes a lot of actions is called a durdle deck.

Dice Mitigation– Dice removal

Flip a Die– Turn a die

Flopped– Revealed from the top of a deck

God Roll or Nut Roll– The best or one of the best rolls one could have.

Hard Removal– In Destiny this refers to mitgation that removes dice without condition or once the condition is met it will remove the die. Flank is a good example of a card that meets a condition and then removes a die. You could also say that Desperate Measures is a hard removal event since it removes the support.

HP– Hit Points, some use it as slang for Health of a character.

Jank or Janky– Inconsistent.

Metagame or Meta– A collection of decks that are considred to be viable for the format.

Money/Dollar/Credit– Resource.

Nerf– To reduce the power level of a card, deck or whatever “Nerf” is describing.

One of or Singleton– One copy of a card in a deck.

Overwrite– Destiny has a rule where you can discard an upgrade in order to play another upgrade minus the cost of the previously discarded upgrade ie you can discard a 2 cost upgrade and play a 4 cost upgrade and only have to pay 2. You can only do this once per round. Previously you could do this as many times as you wanted per round. A card called FN-2199 changed the rule, it was very busted and you should be happy if you didn’t have to play against that degeneracy.

Sack– Lucky person.

Sea of Jizz or The Sea– Decks you will have to face in tournaments that are not usual metagame decks. General rule of thumb is that your deck must be able to beat ‘the Sea of Jizz” in order to do well.

Showing Lethal– Having enough to win. “My opponent was showing lethal but didn’t kill me. I guess they must not have noticed.”

Soft Removal– Dice mitigation that might not remove dice or effects that can turn dice to unwanted sides. Cards like Hidden Motive and Force Jump would be considered soft removal.

Special Chaining– When one special side die resolution turns another die to a special side and then you resolve that die. You can resolve one or more dice of the same side in an action but you resolve them one at a time. Special Chaining is a way of resolving multiple specials in an action even though when you began your action the die you turned wasn’t originally on a special side.

Stand Up– Slang for readying a character.

Sticks and Guns– Sticks is slang for Melee damage and guns is range. Fun Fact: TheHyperloops.com was almost SticksAndGuns.com, I’m glad it isn’t but it could have made for cool t-shirts.

Tech, Technology or Tech Cards– Cards that are considered unusual but serve a purpose in a deck for a metagame. Sometimes a new deck that makes on impact on the metagame maybe refered to New Tech or new technology.

Tempo– The pace at which the game is played. In Destiny if you take actions faster than your opponent you are playing at a Fast Tempo. If you take a bunch of turns but with only one action each you are playing at a slow tempo.

Common Misconceptions

Turn vs Round– A round consists of opponents taking turns, back and forth. This goes on until both opponents pass their turn. After that they go to the next round.

Action vs Turn– Turns usually consist of one action but there are cards/abilities that can trigger additional actions in your turn. Ewok Ambush allows a player to take an additional action via the Ambush ability.

Damage Taken vs Damage Dealt– Damage is always dealt but it isn’t always taken. If a character has 2 shields and it was dealt 2 damage the character will lose two shields but the character took no damage. The classic example is the card Hunker Down. If melee damage hits shields Hunker down won’t be discarded.

Magic The Gathering Terms

I’m sure some people will be annoyed by the inclusion of these but many times things will be referred to by their mtg equivalent. I’ve had haters call me out on this since its not new player friendly. I’ve made a conscious effort to avoid them but sometimes some slip through the cracks of my editing. These terms will also be used conversationally on Facebook, Reddit, Discord and in IRL events so its good to know them.

Cantrip– A card that replaces itself by drawing another card.

Exile– The set aside zone.

Graveyard– Discard pile

Library– Deck

Mana- Resource

Permanent- A card that is in play

Pop– To discard a card in play.

Proc– A card that is discarded with an effect due to meeting a condition. Laser Tripwire is an example of a card that would proc.

Ramp– To add resources to your resource area.

Reach– Ability to do damage out of combat like with events or activated abilities that do damage. Burn decks have a lot of reach.

Sac or Sacrifice– To discard, can refer to a character die or card in play.

Sorcery or Instant– If someone is new to Destiny they might refer to events as these.

Tap/Untap– Tap is Exhaust and untap is ready.

Timewalk- Taking an extra turn.

Tutor– To search a deck for a card and put it in a zone – usually hand or top of deck but sometimes cards will be tutored to discard piles.

Wrath or WoG– Destroy all characters.

This was a lot of fun to write but also a lot of work. I’ll try to update this when new abriviatione and terms become popular. I hope you enjoyed it. Let me know what you think in the comments or on social media. And as always….

May the Rolls be with You!

-NJCuenca