Smurfs are ruining this game. I’m a mid gold support, silver FPS, low gold tank. As a soldier in the army I don’t have an extremely large amount of time to devote to getting better, especially with the atrocious DPS queues. It’s quite disheartening to have to wait10-15 minutes per match on a DPS role and then have someone who’s at a masters or higher who is dropping SR come to my play level and just destroy the whole team. It’s unfair and should be deemed cheating. I know I’m not particularly good at this game, probably never will be due to a shake in my hands that is a byproduct of a head injury sustained in Iraq; but it would be nice to be able to enjoy the camaraderie of a team game without getting rolled by some loser playing way below his SR. Is there anything that can be done to address this problem? Or is this just something that I have to deal with. Thanks for taking the time to read this.
Look man, I hate to tell you but anyone worth calling a smurt isn’t in gold games.
Anyone that looks like or claims to be smurfing in gold is a plat player looking for an ego boost.
Maybe you’ll get unlucky with someone duoing with a lower ranked friend but its pretty uncommon.
Absolutely incorrect. When’s someone’s hitting all the fancy widow trick shots etc and they’re bronze? With only two hours of widow playtime, that’s a smurf. When they spam in chat after every kill,”oh no Smurf’s are ruining my life”. That’s a smurf.
If they are truly smurfing then they will either climb or throw. Throwing is absolutely reportable and is one of the few things I feel very strongly about. It’s a shame blizzard seems to care less about it.
The thing is, the few smurfs that are actually smurfing aren’t technically doing anything wrong. They are playing the game.
If they throw to stay in a lower rank then throwing is the issue.
Its a difficult subject.
I get what you’re saying. It’s just so common at the ELO that I’m in as DPS, I’ll usually have at least one per every 3 or so matches. And I totally agree with you about the throwing. But that’s partly my point. In order for a smurf to be placed so low, at some point and some time they had to throw to get down there. So if someone is getting these fancy trick shots or doing the cross map roll outs as Doom it’s readily apparent that they are a smurf, which in and of itself is direct evidence of throwing at some point of that account.
I wish this were true.
I personally have experienced placing at 2300 up to 3050. I didn’t play any differently, I got just got unlucky during placements.
I either went 5/5 or 4/5 on this account and every role placed mid plat.
Initial placements are stupidly inaccurate.
This account is a perfect example actually. I’m currently mid masters on all roles on my main, the only role that is even close to that currently is support.
I don’t play any different to how I do on my main, but climbing isnt as skill based as one would hope. I will eventually climb but the fact there are 5 other random elements I can’t control already makes the impact I can have pretty limited.
So, when I get a team that enables me I can pop off. if I get a team that doesn’t then it’s arguably harder than playing in my actual rank.
Smurfing is actually cheating according to Blizzard’s own definition of same, specifically “unfair advantage”.
I don’t have anything to say, just thank you for your service to your country.
Thank you for the support 
We know it’s report able, we also know reports are pointless. Until someone gets X amount of reports for X amount of players nothing happens. Even if something happens a simple ticket usually gets it reversed as any action is automated and could be false reports.
Please see the below video of a McRee Smurf on our team. I had unwinnable match after another unwinnable match. Then I get this McRee and Ana on our team and we had the enemy stuck in spawn. The matchmaker finally decided I was too low so after this match I started getting these smurfs on my team and win rather than having to fight them on the enemy team and lose.
Sliver 1900 McRee and Ana smurfs on my team.
Video Share code: HJGKG0
Press the N key on the keyboard and then select McRee or Ana to watch from first person perspective.
Our Lucio kept getting killed over and over again but we still kept the enemy team in spawn and we were still winning 5 v 6.
Silver tier is absolutely infested with smurfs. Look the game is 4 years old and people are bored. Look at looking for group there are still like 2-3 “road to bronze groups” which blizzard still hasn’t cleaned up yet. Blizzard condones the behavior and that is all there is to it. Just play the game for what it is entertainment.
No one is climbing anymore the game is dead there are enough points being fed into the system anymore. The ponzi scheme has crashed.
I watched some of it, the mccree doesnt look like a smurf to me at least, he plays alot like I do, and he misses alot. Im currently in silver dropped from 2200, but im no smurf lol.
By your definition having better eyesight, practicing more, or having a gaming chair is cheating.
No, there isn’t anything you can do about smurfs except practice and hope you get good enough to carry yourself through future matches with them. If your goal is to climb rank consistently, way too high of an expectation especially if you don’t have the time to put into the game to practice. I was stuck in gold several seasons in a row and just now hit platinum back to back on multiple accounts. I play a lot. There is some variable there that differs from person(like natural ability and coordination starting out for example) to person but for the most part if you can’t play a lot you can give up the dream of being a top 500 dps overlord. Just do the best you can in the rank you can sustain and have fun.
That Mccree is high silver or low gold. He regularly misses stunned targets and stands still a lot. Getting cheeky high noons off is more the other team being unobservant. People try that in all ranks. The Ana I can see being high gold.
It’s not my definition. It’s Blizzard’s.
Take it up with them.
Purposely losing is not cheating, it’s gameplay sabotage. That’s the only thing Blizzard agrees they can be reported for, on the way down.
Of course this thread doesn’t help your case much either since the two “smurfs” are both clearly not.
I see smurfs all over gold. saw em all over in Plat, and still seeing them in Diamond. They don’t just get to where they belong 4 years of Overwatch and they are still a consistant problem Anyone who says otherwise is lying, mis-informed, or delusional.
Smurfing is a constant problem in the game that doesn’t end and re-occurs because blizz doesn’t take action to penalize them. There’s entire Discord groups dedicated to Smurfing with thousands of people in them.
De-ranking isn’t hard in a 6 stack you just rotate roles with each other and throw. Takes like a day or 2 to drop nearly 2k SR and then climb over the course of a month only to repeat the process because no one is stopping you.
Personally 1 in 5 games has always had a smurf from Gold to Diamond. It’s not getting better either only worse.
nothing can be done to fix the smurfs just have to hope you get more that aren’t throwing than ones who are