I see lots of posts about how “they’re everywhere” but I’m not even 100% sure what they are considering I don’t notice anything strange in my games.
What are smurfs? What games/modes/ranks are they in & is that why I’m not seeing them?
A good/strong player who is in a lower rank they don’t belong in.
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Any
maybe because you aren’t good enough to get matched against such
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So this typically happens in Diamond & below I guess? I play in Masters/GM so it’s kinda hard to play above that level unless you’re OWL
I don’t really see anyone who is drastically better than everyone else in the game, everyone is typically pretty decent. If anything there’s usually a player or two who seem to be playing above where they’re supposed to be
Well, how does that work? These days I mostly just play quickplay so it’s a mixed bag of good & not so good players. Are the good players considered smurfs?
Well I was Masters/GM when I played comp regularly so how does that work? I don’t think people can smurf in GM if the description of a smurf is “a good/strong player who is in a lower rank they don’t belong in”, GM is about as high as you can get
Maybe it’s because my rank is too high?
My gauge of a good player & yours might be different. You might think Masters players are really good while I might think they’re average since that’s about where I play, higher depending on the role& how much I’m grinding
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That’s the thing. If you are <500 in bronze, pretty much everyone in the game is a smurf to them.
The higher you are the less of a problem it is because the chances of finding someone in your game exceptionally more skilled than you is rare. Its more an issue in situations where its intentional such as a a friends joining them due to SR difference.
Some Master or GM person doing unranked to GM on various accounts. People want to play in their skill range, and there are some who intentionally circumvent this to play at lower ranks.
There is a perception that there is a high degree of alternate accounts. Even among say plat or diamond players, but no one can really prove it.
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ah, that makes sense. It explains why I don’t see these “smurfs”, it’s kinda hard to play exponentially better than Masters/GM players.
So it must be a low/mid rank issue then.
I think players should be able to have as many accounts as they want as long as their behavior is good. But, if they’re throwing games to drop rank just so they can dominate lower rank games then I think that should be bannable with punishments going across multiple accounts
Good players who are using new accounts to get in a different elo are smurfs.
If you were GM you already know what a smurf is.
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All of this sums up my experience too.
Just git gud and no one’s a Smurf amirite? （＾ω＾）
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Its a two-fold problem. There are some people who intentionally derank which I think most everyone can agree is ill-behavior. Which is why I have seen more unranked than bronze → GM vids. As getting to bronze requires actually playing pretty poorly intentionally.
The major problem is that ranking up is a very slow process. ML7 had a unranked to GM series and it still took them like 50matches to go from placements ranked around gold/plat to get to GM. That’s nearly 40 points per match. In a way, the first 25 matches were the most problematic because its this GM person sitting in 2000-3000 ranked sort of ruining these matches where people should be expecting to play with other people people maybe like within +/-500 of their rank.
This good player isn’t getting out of this rank fast enough to where they belong.
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Do they try to rank up or do they throw games to stay in those lower elos?
I wasn’t sure considering how many people I see saying “smurfs are ruining every other game”
If that’s happening then I must not be seeing them for some reason. As it’s been explained to me it’s because I play at a high enough level that there aren’t many (or any) players exponentially better so smurfs just aren’t a thing for me
If you know what smurfs are why did you say it’s probably because I’m too low rank to encounter them? Being low rank seems to be exactly where I would encounter them.
Do you encounter a lot of smurfs?
Yea, intentionally throwing to dominate lower ranked games is wrong. I don’t think making a new account as a GM player & actually placing Plat then ranking up playing normally is wrong though.
Depends. Throwers are variation of smurfing. If you are ranking up and still far from your own elo, that is also a form of smurfing.
Yes. Like almost every game and usually more than one.
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Players on accounts below their actual sr. Some players view any alt account as smurfing whereas others only view accounts when the player has thrown to maintain the low sr as smurfing.
Only comp, generally. Quickplay when going to level 25.
Once players hit masters smurfs aren’t really noticeable because they’re not so much better anymore or even just masters players themselves. It’s just a normal game then. Even if they’re a GM or Top 500 player it’s still normal for the lobby due to the matchmaker putting GM+ players against masters all the time anyway.
Basically a smurf is just an alt once in masters.
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Well, you see… There was this animated television show back in the 1980s based on a 1958 Belgian Comic about these little blue men in white pants with pointed white caps on their heads, which basically revolved around their everyday lives as well as their struggles with being such tiny creatures living in a great big world.
Frankly, I didn’t much care for it… There were better shows with a similar premise like The World of David the Gnome on TV at the time.
Nevertheless, it was among the longest-running animated television programs of the time, running from 1981 until 1989. Granted that it has since been dwarfed by The Simpsons, but it was very impressive for the time, especially considering how many other 1980s cartoon series ended much more quickly.
In addition, The Smurfs franchise has retained its marketability, and has resurfaced throughout the years periodically, proving popular among a wide demographic of both young and old audiences alike.
That being said, I do understand folks displeasure towards the proliferation of The Smurfs, as in my opinion there are far better series which I feel are more deserving of popularity.
For example, I feel that many older series from the early 1900s are due for a reboot, such as Dick Tracy, Tom Swift, and Little Nemo. There’s a lot of untapped potential in those series, and I feel that they could easily be successful in the modern era just as they were a century ago.
In addition, I feel that Conan The Barbarian deserves a modern television series, although admittedly it would most likely be criticized by contemporary views for Conan’s brutality, not to mention the behavior/attire of certain female characters which are by and large damsels in distress, so that one is probably better reserved for a future date, as the necessary alterations to make it appeal to contemporary woke audiences would be completely at odds with the source material, and frankly I really don’t want to see what they would do to Conan the Barbarian in attempt to make it more in line with modern sensibilities.
They are still lower level than one could expect. Still pretty easy to guess they have smurfed their way up.
Yes but it doesn’t make much of a difference to the lobby or outcome of the match. Nobody cares at that point. It’s why you never see masters+ players crying about smurfs.
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Do you think both should be bannable or just the throwers?
Really?
What rank\mode are you encountering these smurfs? Based on what everyone else is saying I’m guessing Diamond/below since you can’t really smurf in Masters+? They’re just alt accounts at that point.
&You didn’t answer my question in my last comment.
Everyone else is saying that low/mid ranks are where you’ll see smurfs because they’re playing below their actual SR, but you told me that I’m probably just too low of a rank to encounter them which seems to be exactly where I would find them.
Were you just trolling? Kinda rude.
Gotcha. Do you think all smurfs should be banned or only the ones that throw games? I don’t really see an issue with a GM making a new account, placing Plat, then ranking up to GM again.
Ahh. I didn’t really see any smurfs when I played comp regularly, but I’m guessing thats because I was Masters/GM and it’s kinda hard to smurf there since everyone is pretty decent.
makes sense. So the “smurf epidemic” where they ruin every other game is probably just Diamond& below then.
Throwers should be banned. The others should be discouraged from making new accounts since they damage the ranks that they pass through.
I didn’t say anything about rank.
You can be high rank and still have low mmr. A smurf who is trying to climb will have very high mmr.
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Throwers should be banned regardless of their reason. I don’t think that alt accounts should be banned just for being alts.
Yeah pretty much. Masters+ either don’t notice or don’t care since the smurf is very rarely good enough to have an unreasonable impact on the match.
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I don’t either, but its the frequency that matters. One would hope its not happening all that often.
Its nearly impossible for a gold player to say I’ll make a new account and just start in bronze and work my way up. A gold player should be like a smurf to a bronze. Unless they intentionally threw hard they should end up in gold again during placements. I’m pretty sure a master/GM can’t get nearly anywhere higher than like 3000. This is where the imbalance happens.
In reality, smurfing can really only come from like diamond, masters, GM, or top 500. How often are people making new accounts to get around RQ times? If it only takes one smurf in game among 12 people to heavily snowball the match unevenly how many matches are being effected?
Smurfing is happening. We know it. There is incentive for it and there are very few things preventing people from doing it beyond account costs. It comes down to the big question of how many people are really doing it and how often.
This doesn’t make any sense. Me not being good enough seems to be the exact time I would encounter smurfs, or at least think I’m encountering them
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