Sepheron is bad though.
Only title because ya’ll are trolls lol. If I responded to the actual content, there’d be no discussion just a ‘l2p’.
I frequently get winning streaks of 5-10. Especially vs Terrans. I also do unranked mostly lol.
Wasn’t talking about Sepheron, he’s GM not M1. But yeah, if you pick up on his gimmicks he sort of falls apart.
There is no real solution to smurfing that does not hurt introducing new people to the game.
Are you saying that there is a solution to smurfing that would hurt new players? Curious, what would that solution be?
Make accounts cost money and ban people when enough evidence is presented. Make there be a financial disincentive to hacking.
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Remove free to play would be one. Having players play several A.I games before being allowed to go into unranked/ranked is another.
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ok lets ban all pro players from the ladder. wait what?
You have bad ideas.
Just allow ranked for accounts verified by phone.
It’s already the case on Overwatch if you want to be into the top 500.
Yes some people will be able to have several accounts but most people just have one phone number.
If people can just have one account available for ranked, it will decrease drastically the number of smurfs. And also, banning cheaters will be far more effective.
It’s not about ‘getting better.’
They just want to laugh at your struggling, at your failing.
Blizz won’t/can’t do anything about it. The only way to fix this is to reach GM imo.
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Negative. In GM u will still be trashed by pro players. Is part of the game, get used to it. Up there is even more painful because of the GM and Masters ego most people have.
They don’t want to get better.
Smurfs are a particularly difficult population to study, since most of them will try to conceal their nature. And even when cornered, their answers are to be taken with a grain of salt.
Yet, among those who can be brought to express themselves about it :
- A majority describe a feeling of unfairness/frustration at their original level of play. Dealing with asymmetrical balance can be frustrating at times, particularly in a fog of war game. When players become unable to cope with that frustration, they either stop or turn themselves towards smurfing.
- Stressful nature of the ladder. Playing normally eventually bring you at a 50% overall winrate, which you must play at your state of the art possibilities to maintain. Some players want to win in a relaxed manner, without having to really fight for it.
- Fun/trolling, trying nonsense strategies that would be doomed to fail against a fairly matched opponent.
- Others.
I must have the proportions of those, but didn’t publish them in the dedicated thread yet I think. If people manifest some interest, I might go back on that.
Stupidity can be a trait, since they indeed don’t realize that the more they degrade the ladder, the less likely it will be to attract new players. Bronze 3 is a caricature of that, since staying in that league too long in fact bring them to face more smurfs/challenge than regular players. Which what they were trying to avoid in the first place. 
However, they aren’t necessarily bullies. Some are, and those are often particularly toxic, but they are minority I think. Most are merely players unable to cope with one or several aspects of the game. 
Can be helpful. Particularly in the context of friendly coaching, where they review and explain your mistakes afterwards.
Sadly, most of the time that isn’t the case with smurfs. Their very smurfing is a hint they play only for their own sake ; and at another hand, most will deny even being a smurf, if they didn’t shut all communications in the first place.
Also, their is a mechanical requirement to correctly execute most strategies of that game. If you don’t meet them against a similarly incomplete opponent, that’s not a big deal. If you don’t, against someone who does, you will often die without even being able to set up your strategy.
Reapers pokes in early TvT are an example of that. I sometimes kill opponents of my level just on my 2->4 reaper poke, because my micro isn’t as bad as my mechanics. Would they have 500-1000 MMR less, they would probably always die on those reapers, and it’s not by seeing my micro that theirs would improve.
In fact, what’s probable is that they would rage, then rage even more by seeing the mismatch in my profile level, and don’t learn a thing.
Keep in mind that if smurfs can’t cope with the frustration induced by playing with players of their own level, it is unlikely for regular players to react better against opponents of a superior one. 
I’ve seen BeastyQT execute a magnificent and totally atypical mass nukes strategy. It was splendid to see how he could cripple an opponent by just harassing constantly.
And then I saw the opponent’s league, diamond 3, almost immediately concealed by changing tab. My esteem for BeastyQT’s stream decreased that day. Where’s the challenge in winning players that have half of your own mechanics ?
Ladder and unranked are performed in the same players pool. Team games also have smurfing issues, possibly more than 1v1 since they have botting as well.
Custom games is the way to go to play in a relaxed way without harming the game’s ranked/unranked function. But if you knew smurfs as well as I do, you’ll get that’s but wishful thinking. 
If a root solution is ever applied, it’ll have to come from the devs, which is unlikely.
We, regular players, have to deal with this by ourselves. 
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Even if the smurfs play unranked, they will still stomp on new players. And you are exactly right, it kills the game even more than terran whine does.
By this point, the top of the ladder at any given time is basically a bunch of greedy, smurfing streamers. People like Vibe doing their 20th bronze to masters, so they can maybe get 1 or 2 more subs.
One streamer will see another one doing bronze to masters, and they just have to host. They basically send the same group of viewbots that they all use thru a 24 hour cycle of their “in club”, then do the same thing the next day.
I’ve even seen it team games. When the streamers all get together and play teams so they can go stomp on noobs that way. It’s really cancerous behavior.
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To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time to every purpose, under heaven
A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep
To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time to every purpose, under heaven
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Again, making an another account and just going through ranks, playing silly strategies isnt that bad imho, at some point you will reach a a balance rank at which your oponents will be able to fight back against your silly strategies (see for example Harstem’s series).The real cancer imho are guys who regularly freeloose to stay low on the ladder, so they can stomp guys who cannot fight back
If the smurf is popular enough on youtube or twitch they probably don’t want to show any losses and only want to play weaker players. That could explain leaving at 0:00. But yeah its really dumb.
Its not about getting better. “They fail in life so much they need a win somewhere even if its counterfeit.”
As for dealing with them. Just play your best never just leave. Test yourself and do not get heated. Its a waste of energy to get heated by someone of such desperate measures.
Afterwards look at the replay and see what you can improve on. Its a very good way for you to learn and eventually pass up the smurf that gave up.
Play complete macro/defensive and wait for them to hit you unless you feel confident in that particular game.
As for smurfing in general: I could give a flying frack how many I bump into on ladder. Just don’t smurf Tournaments. That’s just desperate.
My baby sis and brother at age 8 played in silver tournaments. You really wanna smurf that and brag? Yup pathetic.
glgl
Kay
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Have you seen diablo immortal? Do you really think they care about a game that you can’t dump money into?
Have you guys noticed, that your replies are a bit too late? Like a year late?
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I like to pretend they have passed on and im speaking with a ghost.