SmashWiki:Glossary

Below is a glossary that is useful for understanding Smash Wiki:

General terms

These terms apply to fighting games in general:

• Approaching: The act of moving towards the opponent, usually in conjunction with attacks.
• Attack: An action that involves the use of a move that damages foes.
• AI: Shorthand for Artificial Intelligence. Refers to the intelligence of computer controlled functions; "Bad" AI means the intended function was done poorly.
• Buff: Improving a character's move or an attribute in some way in between games.
  • Nerf: The opposite of a buff, weakening a character's move or attribute in between games.
• Camping: The act of staying away from the opponent in one place and prolonging the battle. When involved with exploits or other extreme tactics, camping can turn into stalling.
• Clean and late hit: The initial hitbox is called the clean hit, while the later hitbox is called the late hit. Examples of attacks which differentiate between hits include Fox's up smash in Melee, and most sex kicks. Usually, the clean hit is much stronger than the late hit. Some attacks have a sourspot which coincides with the late hit, such as the Knee Smash.
• Computer player: A player not controlled by humans, but by the game itself. The player shall face computer players in the single player mode. In multiplayer, computer controlled players are optional. In any case, their difficulty can be adjusted depending on preference.
• Clone: A character that shares most of their moveset and attributes with another character, to the point that both characters can be played very similarly, if not identically.
  • Semi-clone: The "inbetween point" of being a non-cloned character and a clone, this is a character that shares some of their moveset and attributes with another character, but also have a significant amount of different attributes and moves, that calling them a clone is not entirely accurate.
  • Decloning: The act of making a cloned character more unique in between games, through giving them new moves, animations, and altered attributes, sometimes along with the original character getting a few changes as well. Also known as "Luigification" in the Smash community, named after Luigi, who started as a clone of Mario in the original Smash, and has been decloned farther in each successive installment.
• Combo: A series of attacks strung together in succession.
  • True combo: A series of attacks strung together where the opponent was truly incapable of escaping before the finish.
  • String: A series of attacks strung together where the opponent was capable of reacting inbetween blows and could have thus escaped.
• Counter: Can refer to either:
  • A move that relies on waiting to be struck first, and then retaliating, as originally seen with Marth and Roy's Counter in Melee.
  • A character who has an advantage over another; for example, in Brawl, Pikachu counters Falco, as documented on the matchup chart. These can be further divided into soft counters and hard counters; the former refers to matchups where one character has a slight advantage and the latter refers to matchups where one character has a significant advantage.
• Dashing: A form of movement, that involves the character running across the ground. This is usually the fastest means of movement for a character, though a few characters can move faster through other means.
• Dodge: A move that makes a character temporarily intangible to attacks. Can also refer to general movement utilised to avoid getting hit.
  • Rolling dodge: A dodging maneuver that involves moving sideways via a roll or similar movement.
  • Sidestep: A dodging maneuver that involves doing a quick dodge in place, typically with less vulnerability after completion but leaves the player intangible for a more limited time frame. Also referred to as a "spot dodge".
  • Air dodge: A dodging maneuver that involves an aerial character doing a dodging maneuver while moving through the air. Behaves differently in Melee and in Brawl; in the former, characters can air dodge towards a small distance in any direction while leaving the character helpless afterward, while in the latter, characters cannot air dodge towards a direction but will not be left helpless after air dodging.
• Exploit: A case where separate mechanics or interactions work as intended, but cause unintended outcomes when combined. An example is how the game recognises that Popo and Nana are the "same" character when attacking and also recognises that characters being hit by attacks from the character cannot break out of grabs; when these two mechanics are combined, however, Wobbling occurs, as grabbed opponents cannot break out of Popo's grab because they are constantly hit by "one" character.
• Frame: The primary unit of time at which game runs. The Smash series runs at 60 frames per second, meaing 1 frame = 1/60 of a second.
• Free-For-All: A match with more than two players and no teams, so all participants must fend for themselves.
• Grabbing: Clutching the foe so they cannot move for a brief period of time. Usually, a throw follows.
  • Dash grab: A type of a grab a character performs out of a dash. Usually slower, laggier, and have less reach than standing grabs, but the momentum of a character's dash can allow them to grab from farther away.
  • Pivot grab: A type of grab introduced in Brawl, where a dashing character turns around to grab. Usually slightly slower than standing grabs, but have less ending lag and farther reach than other grabs.
• Glitch: A flaw or oversight in the game's programming which results in an unintended outcome. An example would be the Name Entry glitch, where the developers did not foresee a case where players would attempt to enter a name and leave the character select screen at the same time.
• Hitbox: The area of effect for an attack. Generally in proportion of the action; a kick attack should have hitboxes on the foot and leg.
  • Hurtbox: The area on a character or object, where an opposing hitbox must touch to register hitting the character/object.
  • Disjointed Hitbox: A hitbox that extends away from the character's hurtbox, thus allowing it to pass through opposing hitboxes without hurting the user.
• Hitstun: The time when you cannot take any action after being hit.
  • Hitstun cancelling: The act of cancelling an attack's hitstun before its duration finishes. A mechanic unique to Brawl, where characters can air dodge or perform an aerial attack out of hitstun after a certain amount of frames regardless of the hitstun amount.
• Item: An object spawned in the midst of battle. Items have a variety of uses, including healing one's self or ally, or damaging a target. Items, unless they can be spawned by a character's move, are not permitted in competitive play.
• Juggle: Any series of attacks which keep an enemy in the air, preventing them from landing.
• Modification: Usually shorted to "mod", is the editing of a video game. Mods are done to change the aesthetics or gameplay aspects to the modder's content. Project M is an example of a popular mod in Smash Bros.
• Lag: A catch-all term for delay in an action. There are several different types of lag.
  • Start-up lag: Refers to the period of time between an action being inputted and the action having an effect.
  • Ending lag: Refers to the period of time between an action's effect finishing and the player being able to input another action.
  • Landing lag: A different type of ending lag that occurs when a character lands with an aerial attack before the aerial's completion, which causes the character to go through a special landing animation where the player cannot input another action before the animation's completion.
• Leak: A revelation of information about an unreleased game released prematurely, from an unofficial source and without the creators' consent. Leaks whether real or fake, are often the subject of rumors.
• Mindgame: Strategies or techniques employed for the purpose of outwitting the opponent psychologically. The primary component of cerebral skill, the counterpart to technical skill.
  • Baiting: The act of trying to trick the opponent into doing an action that the player can then punish them for.
  • Pressuring: The act of limiting the opponent's options to force them to react in a detrimental manner.
  • Read: A term used to refer to when a player successfully predicts the opponent's next action and is able to preemptively react to punish it effectively. A hard read is when the player pulls off a more significant prediction that allows them to land a particularly heavy blow or start a particularly effective combo.
• Palette swap/Costume swap: The altering of a character's appearance. Used to discern multiples of the same character; for instance, the default Kirby costume is Kirby with pink skin, but can be changed to blue, yellow, red, green, or white. Some characters such as Pikachu exhibit costume changes that add accessories; default Pikachu has no accessories, but a costume change could give it goggles or a hat. And some characters have other characters for their palettes. All costume changes are purely aesthetic and have no effect on gameplay.
• Punish: Attacking the foe while they're vulnerable, usually after failing to execute an attack/strategy.
• Reach/Range: Refers to how far out an attack's hitboxes reach out, thus how far away an attack can hit an opponent.
• Rumor: An unverified claim about a game that receives significant spread throughout the community. They are especially prevalent during the time a new game is announced and before its release. Most rumors are completely false, though a few end up having truth to them.
• Shield: Blocking an attack. In the Smash series, an energy sphere surrounds the player as he/shes blocks, but this deteriorates over time, which will result in it breaking when it shrinks below its minimum threshold.
• Spacing: The act of manipulating an opponent's position by utilising the range of one's character's moves relative to the range of the opposing character's moves. Additionally refers to hitting with an attack from sufficiently far away or hitting with the attack's desired hitbox, to avoid getting punished.
• Stage: The setting for a battle. Can also be called a Map.
• Stalling: The act of deliberately avoiding all conflict, often through the use of extreme exploits to leave oneself invulnerable or out of reach for an extended period of time, with the intent of letting a match's time run out or making the game unplayable. Generally overlaps with camping, but to a much greater degree.
• Stock: The amount of lives a character has. Also refers to the match type; a Stock Match ends when a player runs out of lives. Not always timed, but when they are, the person with the highest amount of stock wins in the event of time running out.
• Sweet spot: The hitbox of an attack that deals the most desirable effect, typically the strongest hitbox in the attack.
  • Sourspot: The opposite of a sweetspot; the hitbox that deals the least desirable effect, typically the weakest hitbox in the attack.
• Taunt: An action done to mock the foe. Usually have no sort of ingame effect, and done in celebration. Entire matches dedicated to taunts are appropriately called "Taunt Matches".
• Technical skill: Known as "tech skill" for short, refers to a player's ability to manipulate their controller to produce desired inputs. Players with greater tech skill can make inputs faster and more precisely, allowing them to more often and effectively pull off maneuvers that require more complicated inputs.
• Training mode: Allows one to become familiar with the character they're using in a controlled setting.
• Tier list: The ranking of a character's potential effectiveness to perform in competitive play.
• Tournament: A gathering of players to compete in a controlled setting, to determine the best player out of the gathering.
• Walking: A type of movement, that involves the character walking across the ground. While usually slower than other movement options, a character can perform any action at any time out of a walk.
• Zero-to-death combo: Referred to as "zero-death" for a short, a combo that starts on an opponent at or near zero damage, that finishes with the opponent being KO'd. Can also be used to refer to any general sequence of moves that started on the opponent at zero damage, and finished with them KO'd, that weren't combo'd together but the opponent was unable to successfully hit back or interrupt the sequence.
  • Infinite: A combo that can continue indefinitely regardless of damage while keeping the opponent locked in with no chance to escape if performed correctly. Functionally equivalent to a zero-death, but non-altruistic players can potentially abuse an infinite to stall time (which all tournaments have a rule against).

Smash-specific

These terms pertain to the unique elements in the Smash series:

• Advanced technique: A technique that isn't one of the game's basic moves, that requires beyond basic inputs to successfully perform.
• Aerial: An attack that a character performs while airborne. In each Smash game, every character has five different aerials, one for each of the four basic directions and one for no directional input. The type of aerials are:
  • Neutral aerial: Referred to as "nair" for short, an aerial inputted when the attack button is pressed without any directional input. Neutral aerials are typically weak and the character's aerial attack with the fastest start-up, while involving being a type of sex kick, or an attack where the character spins.
  • Forward aerial: Referred to as "fair" for short, an aerial inputted when the attack button is pressed in conjunction with the direction the character is facing. Forward aerials typically involve some sort of attack towards the front of the character. Effect wise, there is no common arch-type for forward aerials, with their speed, power, reach, and trajectory varying greatly across characters.
  • Back aerial: Referred to as "bair" for short, an aerial inputted when the attack button is pressed in conjunction with the reverse direction the character is facing. Back aerials typically involve some sort of attack towards the back of the character, and are usually a solidly useful attack that is above average in all categories; very few characters have a back aerial that is decidedly ineffective or inferior to the character's other attacks.
  • Up aerial: Referred to as "uair" for short, an aerial inputted when the attack button is pressed in conjunction with an up directional input. Up aerials typically involve some sort of attack aimed above the character, and are usually an upward hitting attack meant to juggle the opponent and/or KO opponents vertically.
  • Down aerial: Referred to as "dair" for short, an aerial inputted when the attack button is pressed in conjunction with a down directional input. Down aerials typically involve some sort of attack aimed below the character. Effect wise, down aerials are typically either meteor smashes, a multi-hitting drill type of attack, or a stall-then-fall that also may or may not meteor smash.
• Auto-cancelling: If a character lands with an aerial during a specific timeframe of the attack (usually the immediate beginning or immediate end of the move), the character will land with their standard landing animation instead of the aerial's landing animation, resulting in almost no landing lag.
• Blastline: The invisible boundaries on the four sides of a stage, that will KO a character who passes them, whether by being knocked past them or moving past one themself. The exception is the top blastline, which will only KO when a character passes one while in knockback.
• Chain grab/chain throw: A series of consecutive throws that allow the player to regrab the opponent before they can escape; essentially a combo involving throws.
• Clang: When two attacks collide into each other. It will either result in the attacks cancelling each other out (if they deal similar damage) or one overriding the other (if one is significantly stronger than the other).
• DACUS: Short for "dash attack-cancelled up smash", an act where a player immediately cancels their dash attack with an up smash, which results in some characters sliding forward a significant distance while performing their up smash.
• Dash attack: A type of attack that a character can perform while dashing. Typically involves the character moving forward a small distance while attacking.
• Dash dancing: The act of repeatedly dashing back and forth, done to either confound the opponent or to show off.
• Direction of attacks: All characters can direct their attacks;
  • Up: All characters can do an upwards directed attack on the ground or in the air.
  • Down: Likewise with up, all characters can do a downwards directed attack on the ground or in the air.
  • Sideways: On the ground, attacks directed to the left or right are referred to as "side" attacks.
  • Forward: Offensive moves initiated while moving forward in the air. Also tends to be used for side ground attacks; "forward tilt" and "side tilt", and "forward smash" and "side smash", refer to the same attack.
  • Back: Offensive moves initiated while the control stick is pointed the opposite direction of where the character is facing.
  • Neutral: No input given other than the attack button.
• Directional influence: If a player holds the control stick in a direction as they're struck with an attack, they will slightly alter their launch trajectory in the direction they were holding their control stick. Can be utilised to live longer and to escape combos. Referred to as "DI" for short.
  • Smash directional influence: If a player makes any movement inputs right when they're struck with a hitbox, their character's position will move slightly towards the direction inputted before being launched. Mostly utilised to escape combos and multi-hitting moves before their completion. Referred to as "SDI" for short.
• Edge-guarding: The act of attacking an offstage opponent, taking advantage of their increased vulnerability to more easily damage and KO them, while trying to prevent them from successfully making it back to the stage.
• Falling speed: The speed at which a character falls when airborne.
  • Floaty: A term used to refer to characters with especially low falling speeds, such as Samus.
  • Fast-faller: A term used to refer to characters with especially fast falling speeds, such as Captain Falcon.
• Fastfall: Pressing down on the control stick at or after the peak of a jump, causing the character to fall quicker.
• Final Smash: An attack of ultimate power granted to a character upon breaking the Smash Ball. Activated by pressing the special move button once gained.
• Gimp: A KO that involved disrupting an offstage opponent's recovery, resulting in them failing to make it back to the stage and falling to their death at the bottom blastline, rather than forcefully knocking them past a blastline.
• Glide toss: A technique that involves immediately cancelling a character's roll by throwing an item, which results in the character sliding in the roll's direction while throwing the item. The distance slid depends on the character, what direction the character was rolling, and the specific time they interrupted the roll. The distance slid can between almost no distance to almost the entire stage length.
• Helpless: A state where a character in the air is unable to perform any action until landing. Typically occurs after performing a recovery move, and is indicated by the character being stuck in a character-specific pose while flashing.
• Jab: The common term for a character's neutral attack, which is a ground attack inputted by pressing the attack button without any directional input. Typically a very quick, short reaching, and very weak attack, that can be followed through for a standard basic combo.
• Knockback: The amount of force applied to a character when hit. Also used to describe the distance flown due to this force.
• Knockout/KO : When a character is launched out of the stage, or, in Stamina Mode, runs out of hit points.
• L-cancel: The act of pressing L/R/Z right before landing with an aerial attacl to reduce its landing lag.
• Ledge: The end part of a platform that characters can hang on to. Typically, characters grab onto the ledge when recovering from offstage. Various actions can be done off a ledge.
  • Edge-hogging: The act of grabbing a ledge to intentionally prevent another player from doing so. Often utilised during edge-guarding.
• Guest/Third Party Character: A playable character that is not originally from a Nintendo property; Sonic, Snake, and Mega Man are all guests.
• Meteor smash: An attack that launches opponents downwards. Since grounded opponents can't be hit through the stage, such attacks will instead cause them to bounce off the stage, resulting in them flying upward with reduced knockback.
  • Meteor cancel: A mechanic that allows an aerial character hit by a meteor smash to completely negate the meteor smash's knockback, by jumping or performing their recovery move in a specific timeframe after being hit with one.
  • Spike: An attack that launches opponent downwards, but at a diagonal enough angle that the game doesn't recognise it as a meteor smash, and thus cannot be meteor cancelled. Also a common term used to refer to meteor smashes in Smash 64 and Brawl, where the lack of any downward-hitting attacks with altered functioning negate the need to have distinct terms.
  • Semi-spike: An attack that hits opponents at an especially low horizontal angle, which causes them to fall below the stage's height when knocked offstage with one.
• Midair jump: A jump every character can perform while airborne, often referred to as a "double jump". Most characters can only use one midair jump before landing or grabbing a ledge, but some characters can jump an additional multiple times in the air before landing.
  • Double jump cancelling: The act of cancelling the momentum of a character's midair jump with an attack. Can be performed only by the few characters with a special midair jump, such as Yoshi.
• Misfire: Luigi's Green Missile move has the chance to randomly "misfire" regardless of charge, resulting in explosive animation that causes Luigi to fly across the stage, resulting in it traveling faster and farther, while dealing significantly more damage and knockback to any opponent Luigi collides with.
• Momentum cancelling: A technique, where a player in knockback performs various actions, to redirect or negate their momentum, allowing them to survive blows that would have KO'd them otherwise. Only possible in Brawl, as hitstun cancelling is required for a character to be able to act while in knockback.
• Moonwalking: A technique that allows a character to move backward a small distance while dashing.
• Out of shield: Refers to any action a player performs immediately out of their shield. An out of shield punish is when the player successfully punishes the opponent after the opponent struck their shield.
• Planking: A technique where a player stays hanging on the ledge beyond what is necessary, abusing the ledge's invincibility to remain safe. One of the most prominent stalling tactics.
• Priority: The mechanic that determines what happens when the hitboxes of two attacks collide with each other. Usually results in the two attacks being interrupted and thus "cancelled out", though if one colliding hitbox deals significantly more damage than the other, only the weaker attack will be interrupted while the stronger attack continues throughout its normal duration. Also erroneously used to refer to an attack's general ability (through its speed, reach, and hitbox placement) to bypass other attacks.
  • Transcendent priority: A term used to refer to a property some hitboxes have, where they are completely unable to clang with the hitboxes of all other attacks, allowing them to bypass priority altogether.
• Recovery: An effort to return to the stage once knocked off it.
• Scrooging: The act of a player traveling underneath the stage from one side to the other, usually to stall time. There are "anti-scrooging" rules that were implemented in many high level Brawl tournaments. The general rule states that the character must land on the stage before scrooging again. The terminology/technical was abused however
• Share stock: In team based multiplayer matches, it is possible to take an ally's extra life once the player has been removed from the game, done by pressing Start in Melee or A+B in Brawl.
• Sharking: The act of a player attacking the opponent from underneath the stage's main platform. Considered to be an "offensive' version of ledge Planking though Sharking also can involve platforms that can be jumped through, such as on Haliberd.
• Short hop: A smaller jump, done by tapping the jump button briefly and letting go near immediately.
• Smash attack: A powerful offensive ground move that can be charged for additional damage. Every character has three types of smash attacks;
  • Forward smash: Also known as "side smash, and referred to as "f-smash" for short, inputted by pressing the attack button in conjunction with a tapped left or right directional input. Typically involves the character throwing a mighty blow in front of them, with generally more reach than their other attacks. Forward smashes are usually the character's slowest but most powerful smash attack, and one of the character's most powerful attacks, if not their strongest altogether.
  • Up smash: Referred to as "u-smash" for short, inputted by pressing the attack button in conjunction with a tapped up directional input. Typically involves the character forcefully striking upward. Effect wise, up smashes tend to be an inbetween of forward and down smashes in terms of speed and power, though some characters have up smashes that are distinctly more powerful than their other attacks (Fox being a prominent example of such throughout the series). Some characters also have up smashes that are weaker than their other smashes while being multi-hitting.
  • Down smash: Referred to as "d-smash" for short, inputted by pressing the attack button in conjunction with a tapped down directional input. Typically involves the character striking both the front and back of them, whether at the same time or in succession. Down smashes are usually the character's fastest, but weakest smash attack.
• Space Animal: Refers to Fox, Falco, and Wolf, whose similar fast falling speed and gravity values allow them to get inflicted with unique combos and chain throws that don't affect other characters. Captain Falcon is also sometimes lumped into this group, for having the similar falling speed and gravity that allows him to also get hit by "space animal combos".
• Special move: A move that has unique or otherwise unusual properties, that go beyond merely damaging a foe, and can be typically initiated from the ground or air. Also called B Moves. Every character has four special moves (three in the original Smash), which are:
  • Neutral special: A special move inputted by tapping the special button without any directional input. Neutral specials are typically the character's most basic special move, being a projectile or some type of charging attack.
  • Side special: Also known as a "forward special", a special move inputted by tapping the special button in conjunction with a left or right directional input. Side specials are typically special moves that involve the character moving forward while attacking, or a projectile with more complicated attributes. Side specials did not exist in Smash 64.
  • Up special: A special move inputted by tapping the special button in conjunction with a up directional input. Up specials are typically the character's "recovery move", a type of move that allows the character to move a significant distance through the air. Up specials also usually have minimal practical effect outside recovery purposes.
  • Down special: A special move inputted by tapping the special button in conjunction with a down directional input. Down specials are typically a character's special move with an "other function" (i.e. they have a more unique effect than the character's other special moves).
• Stale-move negation: A mechanic that causes a move to weaken as it is successively used. It additionally only counts moves that successfully hit an opponent; a move that fails to land will not count towards it.
• Sticker: A collectible item that can be applied to characters in the Subspace Emissary to boost stats.
• Sudden Death: A mode used to resolve ties in VS. mode matches, where all tied players will fight only one stock with 300% damage, while Bob-ombs start falling from the sky if the players fail to KO each other in time.
• Tether: A method of recovery involving grabbing onto a ledge from a distance.
• Trophy: A collectible object, modelled after specific characters from Nintendo's franchises, that can be viewed in the trophy gallery, accompanied by a short bio of the trophy's subject. Trophies can be obtained by doing various tasks in-game.
• Time out: Refers to when a match's timer runs out, resulting in the end of the match and a winner being announced, or progressing to Sudden Death if two or more players tied. In competitive play, it's also used as a verb, to referred to when a player wins a game via letting the time run out while they had the lead.
• Tilt: The common term for "strong attacks", standard ground attacks that can be performed towards a direction with the control stick "titled" instead of tapped. The are three type of tilts;
  • Forward tilt: Also known as "side tilt", and referred to as "f-tilt" for short, inputted by pressing the attack button in conjunction with the control stick tilted towards the right or left direction. Forward tilts typically involves the character throwing out some sort of basic attack in front of them, while being an inbetween of their jab and forward smash in terms of power, speed, and reach. Usually serves as a quick spacer or weak punisher.
  • Up tilt: Referred to as "u-tilt" for short, inputted by pressing the attack button in conjunction with the control stick tilted up. Up tilts typically involve the character throwing out some basic attack above them. Up tilts tend to be more powerful than forward tilts but with less reach, and usually serve as a quick ground attack that can start combos and juggle opponents, while being capable of KOing at very high damages, though some up tilts are distinctly powerful and can KO as effectively as smash attacks.
  • Down tilt: Referred to as "d-tilt" for short, inputted by pressing the attack button in conjunction with the control stick tilted down. Down tilts typically involve the character throwing out some basic attack that is aimed low in front of them, and are usually the character's fastest tilt, but also their weakest. Many down tilts also have the ability to induce tripping, and many can semi-spike or meteor smash.
• Traction: How well the character sticks to the ground. The lower the traction of a character, the farther they will slide around on the ground from momentum.
• Tripping: The act of a character tumbling over, and being left in a vulnerable sitting position. Tripping can be induced from being hit with certain attacks at too low of damage to get launched off the ground, and in Brawl, can randomly occur 1% of the time whenever a dash is inputted.
• Wall of pain: A technique where a player barrages the (usually offstage) opponent with a succession of aerials across a horizontal distance, while the opponent is unable to, or can react little before the player finishes. Most prolific with Jigglypuff, though other characters with multiple midair jumps can pull off lesser variations.
• Wave dashing: A technique in Melee that involves the character air dodging into the ground at a diagonal angle, resulting in them sliding a small distance while being able to input any other action. How far a character slides is dependent on their traction, with characters sliding farther the lower their traction is. Characters with the highest traction will barely move, while those with the lowest traction will slide nearly half the stage's length.
• Weight: Each character has a weight value, which affects how far they are launched when hit, with characters suffering less knockback the heavier they are. Heavier characters typically survive for longer than lighter characters, but are in return more vulnerable to being combo'd.

Tournament-specific

These terms are used in the context of Smash tournaments, or the fighting game tournament community in general:

• Bracket manipulation: The act of a player or a group of players manipulating the progression of a tournament bracket, typically done by one intentionally losing in pools or the winners bracket to get a more favorable bracket progression, or intentionally losing to help another player artificially place higher.
• Crew: A group of Smash Bros. players that live near each other, and often play and train against each other. Will also often team together in doubles tournaments and Crew battles.
• Counterpicking (stage): The act of picking the next stage after losing, usually with the intent to give the counterpicking player an advantage.
  • Counterpicking (character): The act of a player choosing their character after the opponent chooses theirs, also usually done to give themself an advantage.
• Dave's Stupid Rule: A tournament rule that prevents one from counterpicking to a stage he/she already won on/last won on depending on which version is used.
• Ditto match / Mirror match : A match where all players chose the same character.
• Doubles / Teams: The portion of a tournament where matches involve teams of two players each.
• Friendly: A non-tournament match between two or more players with no consequences for winning or losing.
• Hype: Analagous to "excitement", such as "they're hyped for the next match".
• John: A "justification" for one underperforming or an error in performance.
• Main: A Smasher's preferred character, and the one they play and train with the majority of the time; some Smashers may have more than one main, though competent players will never have more than about three true mains.
• Matchup: The measure of how a character is expected to perform versus another character, with both played at high, equal skill. For example, Mario in Brawl has a +1 matchup against Link, meaning Mario is expected to fare slightly better and win more often than not. Mario has a -1 matchup when facing Yoshi however, and thus Mario is considered to be at a slight disadvantage.
• Ruleset: Guidelines that participants must follow when fighting in a tournament. Typically, this includes rules such as limiting stage selection or controlling who must choose their character first.
• Money match: A non-tournament match between two or more players, who each wager an amount of money, that will then be taken by the winner of the match. Often played with additional stipulations (such as the players having to use a specific character), and the players may wager something other than money as well.
• Pocket character: A secondary character the player doesn't properly practise with, who they explicitly use when it will give them a significant advantage over the opponent's character.
• Salty: Analagous to "being upset, disappointed, and/or angry", such as "he's real salty he lost".
• Salty runback: The act of, upon losing a match, quickly selecting the same stage for the next match.
• Sandbagging: The act of intentionally under-performing, whether through purposely playing poorly or using a character the player knows they will perform worse with.
• Secondary: A character that a player often plays and trains with, though much less so than with their main(s), and will usually not be the first character the player goes to when trying to win. Typically used in tournament matches in specific matchups, where the player's main is hard countered, or when the player simply heavily dislikes fighting the opposing character with their main.
• Side event: An additional, less serious event at a tourney played on the side of the tournament's primary event. Is typically another tournament bracket run under non-standard conditions or with additional stipulations.
• Singles: The portion of a tournament where matches involve one-on-ones. Typically used in contrast to "doubles".
• Smasher: A term used to refer to people who play Smash with any sort of dedication.
• Splitting: The of act of two or more players sharing their tournament winnings between each other, often in conjunction with one agreeing to lose or other means of bracket manipulation.
• Stream: Tournaments may record matches for viewers on the internet to watch live; this is called streaming.
• Tournament legal: Settings and regulations widely accepted for playing competitively.

Wiki-specific

The terms that follow are used in the context of SmashWiki itself. Please note that skimming this section should not be done in lieu of actually reading policy.

• Administrator/System Operator: A highly trusted user of the wiki entrusted with additional tools that regular users cannot access, such as the ability to delete a page or block users. They have a noticeboard where all users can post problems or concerns that the admins will aid with.
• Autoconfirmed user: An account that has been existent for at least a week, with ten or more edits. Upon achieving auto confirmed status, the user gains more rights, such as moving a page.
• Article: A page of relevant Smash Bros. information. A "complete" article addresses all the aspects of the subject in addition to using appropriate images and links to other articles.
• Block: Preventing a user from editing the site, in accordance to the blocking policy.
• Bot: A non-human user that is programmed to do a certain task on the wiki, typically minor and simple maintenance work that needs to be done on a large amount of pages, that would otherwise distract the active user base from making more significant edits.
• Bureaucrat: Users that can modify the powers of users, in addition to some other additional tools admins do not have.
• Cleanup: An article in need of cleanup needs the attention of other users to improve formatting, structure, or clarity of the article in question.
• Developer: User that can lock and edit the database if necessary.
• Edit: Edits are done to modify the website's text or appearance. See Help:Editing for the full scope.
• File/Image: A picture uploaded to the Wiki; images are almost always employed in articles or templates, but each user is allowed to upload some personal images, as long as they're not excessive. Unused or lower quality images get deleted over time.
• Flaming/Flamer: The act of "flaming" is purposely going out of one's way to insult and harass other users of the site. Continued acts of flaming will lead to a ban. A "Flame War", where insults are exchanged from both parties, almost always lead to a ban.
• Forum: A discussion page that isn't attached to an article or user page; typically pertaining to general wiki issues or for exchanging opinions. The best example of a forum is the Smash Arena. Not to be confused with a Talk page.
• Help page: A page dedicated to explains aspects of SmashWiki. See Help:Contents and the help category for help pages.
• "IRC"/Internet Relay Chat: An instant-message service offered through GameSurge. It allows anyone to chat with people within the same room; SmashWiki's room is #sw. Generally used to organize online matches, discuss Wiki matters, or to hang out.
• Link: A piece of text, usually differentiated by color, that once clicked will lead to a different page on the site. Links are as follows;
  • Blue links go to a page in SmashWiki.
  • Purple links go to an already visited page in SmashWiki.
  • Red links lead to pages that do not exist. Some pages may be supposed to exist, while others may not.
  • Lighter blue links will bring the user to a page outside of SmashWiki. We are not responsible for the actions of external websites.
• Policy: The rules of the Smashwiki; how the site is to be run, what is expected from the articles and users, et cetera. All users should familiarize themselves with the policies prior to editing.
• Rollbackers: Users who can use rollback to immediately undo all edits by the same person in one click. This is mostly used to deal with vandals.
• Sockpuppet: A sockpuppet is an alternative account made by a user under non-good faith intent, usually to pretend being another user, to violate wiki policy without getting infracted on their primary account, to get multiple votes on Smash Arena, or to bypass a ban.
• SmashWiki Status System: An analysis of the Wiki's current state; when the wiki has a high volume of editing while lacking large quantities of information, a "yellow" or "red" status may be employed, and this means that user page and forum edits are limited, until the wiki enters a better state. "Green" or "Blue" are what are considered "healthy" areas to be.
• Stub: An article that has inadequate information; it may have incomplete sections or lacking sections entirely.
• Talk page: A page attached to every other page for communicating with other Wiki members about topics relating to the original page's content. See Help:Talk page for the full scope. Not to be confused with a Forum.
• Troll: A user that intentionally behaves in an unbecoming manner (such as intentionally repeatedly breaking policy, intentionally spouting unpopular and flame-provoking opinion in an aggressive manner, and attacking other users unprovoked), with the intention to rile up other users and get a negative reaction of them. Can overlap with vandal, though the two are not necessarily the same.
• Universe: The "universe" of a series refers to all properties from said franchise that are relevant to Smash Bros.
• User: A person or bot that uses the website. A user may or may not be logged in, nor is it required to view and edit most of the site.
  • Userpage: A personal page every user is entitled to upon registering. No anonymous users may get their own userpage. In addition, all users can also have user subpages. Generally, though, it's frowned upon to emphasize user page construction over wiki contributing, especially when SmashWiki enters "Status Red".
• Vandal: A user who purposely fills Smashwiki with incorrect or inappropriate text, or removes sections of articles. Such users are extremely likely to be banned in accordance to the block policy.
• Wiki: A community-maintained website with the intention of becoming the compendium of whatever subject it pertains to. For example, Smash Wiki aims to become a compendium of Smash Brothers. information.