It’s not that I can’t see a use for them, but it ends up foisting their problems onto others 
It creates a throwaway mentality leading to doing stuff you wouldn’t on you’re main cos it may cost you, but you go ahead anyway cos you don’t care. They’re just dumping their problem onto a whole bunch of others not to mention the many stomps that happen along the way cos the matchmaker is screwed up.
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I didn’t know that, that’s pretty cool.
Sometimes it gives a sense of fulfillment when you successfully beat the team with the smurf in qp.
I have a couple of issues with this. 1.) What about different accounts among siblings/family members that are under the same name and/or address?
2.) Some people use alt accounts in a non-malicious way. It’s not a big deal since role queue, but I know before I had a tank alt that I tried to use to learn Reinhardt better. This wouldn’t affect me much since I’m a scrub and my MMR is bad anyway, but say someone’s a GM Genji, but a silver level Reinhardt. How are they gonna learn Reinhardt without being slaughtered in GM MMR?
I do realize smurfs are a problem and I don’t defend the behavior, but the issue is that alt accounts =/= smurfs. There has to be a distinction made.
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People won’t be reported as smurfs enough to trigger the system unless they are routinely completely carrying games.
If they are, well, that sucks, but all you have to do is get facestomped in QP for a while to drop down.
I mean, that works in theory, but you know how salty people are. lol They’d report anyone they lost to, no matter the circumstance just to be petty.
Heck I get accused of cheating sometimes (and I assume reported) and I’m terrible. XD I imagine the amount of false smurf reports would be insane.
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This is probably the best solution I’ve seen. Not for every single time you do Ranked, but to be eligible for Ranked in the first place perhaps.
Nah because that leaves QP (the main game mode, remember) as a wasteland of garbage.
How about SMS verified get a segregated QP too.
I find this not possible. If they do this then they literally banned a valid cell phone provider. I use Google Fi which is Google’s cell phone service. They use phone numbers from their Google voice number pool.
This could easily lead to people complaining that they can’t use the SMS protect.
https://fi.google.com/
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thats a dumb take. im a talking about my main. where im gm. and youre saying i should never get matches in casuals because “muh feelings”
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Alts and Smurfs are not the same thing and we really need understand this.
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No, I’m saying you should never get matches with much weaker players because you’re far too good.
It’d be like an NFL player sneaking into a middle school game. I don’t care how relaxing it is for you, it’s a crappy thing to do.
The only issue is that SMS requires a cell phone, and even in today’s age not everyone has one. 
Especially considering OW is a global game.
Exactly. I have a few non-malicious accounts that I use for random things. I don’t smurf (nor could I - I suck lol). Like the worst I have is a Tracer one-trick that’s somehow 500+ SR above my main account for whatever reason. (Or, rather, was back when I actually played comp.)
Anyway, I would be fine with the system acknowledging I was the owner of all my accounts, though, and taking that into consideration and limiting my comp experience in some way to make sure I wasn’t up to no good. Because I do hate actual smurfs, so I’d be willing to sacrifice some freedom in favor of limiting their activity.
But they’d have to make sure it was something fair for everyone. There’s so many loopholes, and it’s very possible innocent people could get screwed over.
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It literally says that google voice numbers are not valid when you try to register your GV number 
I’ll give it a test when I get a chance with my cell phone. If it doesn’t work I’ll be calling and complaining to them.
ya know… i kinda see your point
but like smurfs still deserve to exist
I wasn’t saying to ban them, if you check the original post.
nah. smurfing is awesome.
But my number isn’t VoIP.
I had Google voice years ago. Google announced they were starting their own phone service. I signed up for the service. They stated that I could either lose my Google voice # and port my current cell # OR keep my Google voice #. I choose to keep the Google voice #. So my Google voice # was moved over to my cell phone.
In short, if Blizzard just banned the entire Google phone number pool then they are blocking real cell phone users as well.
There is no way to detect if a phone number is a VoIP number or a standard phone service number. In fact a lot of phone services are VoIP now. The ISP I use to work for also had a phone switch that could take a VoIP call and convert it to standard land line and vice versa live during a call. It’s the only way someone with VoIP can talk to other people that don’t have VoIP.
So I tried my cell phone and it tells me the number is invalid. I’ll be contacting support to complain. I tried a VoIP number from the ISP I use to work for and it does work.
Banning phone number pools like this is no better than banning IP address. It doesn’t work. You will ban innocent people while not stopping the trouble makers.
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