Been playing since…i don’t know past 20 years. Last year or so, I’ve grown sick of playing “people” who have only played 50 times, never competed 1 on 1 in league, and kill me like they are just practicing, nothing but a thing…easy. Master in disguise? Super computer BS?
Now this may just sound like whining…but it’s always 50 games they have played before, not one less or more. And…they have never played a league game.
How is that?
Smurfs are the dumbest thing. Nothing pisses me off more than playing a guy and thinking “how the **** is this guy diamond” and then see after that he is a placement match and his APM is 300+. Riiight.
I think it’s more than Smurfs… I think it’s SC allowing Masters or Developers or something test things on the rest of us.
eh, apm doesn’t mean anything. plenty of actual gold leaguers that spam 300 apm.
naw ladder is littered with smurfs. there’s a lot of sad nerds that play sc2 and sometimes they just want to make newbs feel bad. it’s a thing.
Yeah and I don’t understand that. There’s nothing more boring to me than a game that isn’t competitive.
It’s aggravating to a lot of players. Though APM can only be considered as a hint regarding that. A total career games too low for their leagues however, can be considered as a confirmation. According to my sources, the smallest amount of games to reach diamond was 200, and that was for a guy who was both coached and gifted.
In other words, a guy who reaches diamond MMR with only 50 game into his profile can’t be anything but a smurf. He has already learned the game elsewhere. 
It’s certainly not the devs. As for why 50 games (supposing it’s not a pure coincidence), 25 games are the amount of games required to get out of provisional MMR state : you get placed accurately only once you’re out of that phase. And some smurfs do make sure to never go over that amount, to appear being in a lower league than they are. More about those smurfs in the dedicated thread (part I & II, or search for « Non freelosing smurfs » in your browser).
So it’s possible that you met some smurfs who pulled that little stunt twice. Either that, or a coincidence. AFAIK, Alphastar (Deepmind’s SC2 AI) isn’t testing on the ladder anymore.
Some players just can’t stand the frustration or stress that competition induces anymore. Others just can’t stand a match-up. And there are some who revel in trolling supposedly vulnerable targets. Some do that upon restarting the game after a few months break, to soften the resuming. There are quantities of reasons behind that.
Not that those reasons are necessarily legit of course, but they’re still a cause.
I’ve done a sometimes hilarious, sometimes disillusioning survey about those reasons among smurfs. If some are interested, I might publish it once my leagues reports are finished, but it was primarily done for the devs, in case they wanted to address the causes. 
It is very likely smurfs, but I kid you not, my theory is they throw in some AI at least into the archon matchups. There’s no way new accounts come out of years of inactivity and then just decide they want to run 3v3s or archon mode. So while I don’t doubt the possibility of you facing strong AI, it’s very likely a player is just practicing on you.
You think this is bad? not for me but even for those that complain. i wasted money on a stupid mobile “strategy” game that is all about unfair battles having to battle ones that are not only pay to win but have their acc for years, have upgraded everything ingame and it’s like playing chess vs someone with all figures while you only have few pawns
the last auto tourny i joined had 4/8 players as smurfs haha. It really is a problem. And it does blow my mind too, i cant imagine taking the time to create new accounts to have easier games… I can’t imagine being quite that desperate.
Well thanks for the response everyone, guess it is just smurffing. Maybe what Trias said about min wins could be a solution. Basically, your Bronze, until you win 200 or something. Who knows how many times I seen people quit second 1, and then turn around playing me again, and do the same again…where are they going?
Maybe. Let’s hope it gets noticed. 
They’re going nowhere, that’s the point. They do stagnate in their real leagues, and instead of working in stepping up their game (like most would), they just blame it on something else, don’t want to invest themselves further or get too stressed/frustrated to do it. And so, to kill time, or avoid frustration, they just start playing at lesser levels and stay there until they regain confidence / motivation or whatever. But effectively, offracing put aside maybe, that kind of behavior doesn’t lead anywhere : they’re just not gonna improve by playing much weaker opponents.
It is in fact a failure state.