Is 'Smurfing' against the ToS?

[Kaedi-11739]

@Genosho-1820

Yeah, its annoying, but is it actually violating any rules? Just curious.

From Game Director Jeff Kaplan:

@JeffreyKaplan

Starting a new account is not against the rules. Boosting or throwing is against the rules.

If you start a new account and play normally, the matchmaker determines your skill level very quickly and matches you with similar players.

Also from Scott Mercer on Reddit

@Scott Mercer

“Smurfs” are another topic we’re discussing, but it’s important to note that there’s a lot of different issues here. Let me start by saying if you throw a bunch of games to derank so you can then rise back up to a higher SR, that is considered gameplay disruption and action can be taken against that account. Don’t do that, folks.

Things get a little murkier when the “smurf” is a brand new account. We have multiple different systems in the matchmaker to try and identify new players skill and adjust quickly such as win streak bonuses, increased rate of MMR change for new players, and we still make some adjustments based on your personal performance until the player reaches a high SR. We can tune these more aggressively, but it can create negative consequences for players who actually ARE new. So we’re looking at some new ways to identify skill so we can quickly identify the players who skill and SR don’t match. It’s a tricky problem, but we’re working on it.