Please define what you call smurfing.
To smurf is to play on an account which isn’t your main one.
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High level players (M1 → pros) use this not to be spied upon (builds, moves) while laddering.
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Regular users (M2 → gold) use this in conjunction to freelosing, deliberately lowering their MMR in order to play lower level users.
Both can be called smurfs. And though the first use is legit, the one you’ll see most users complain about is the second one.
The main difference between those two types of smurfs, is that only the second sort will freelose.
More detailed information below if you want :
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So…my mmr is plat and I’m really a d1 or m3… I purposely lost games last season not to play bronze etc. I actually just wanted the bronze title to hear the rage of people saying they dont want me on their team or in game they say things like “man we got a bronze here. This gonna be rough” to go ahead and perform well and exceed expectations. I’m 15-0 this season as you see I’m not winning and then losing to stay low league and just abuse lower level players. I’m actually in the process to climb back up cause I’m going to be getting involved in more ranked games now so headed to the sky! Many of these smurfs are usually top level players though and many gms do it too. I’m guessing they dont want the publicity? Either way. Making this post only fuels the reason smurfs do what they do. Best way to play is treat every opponent. Regardless of league as if you’re facing a gm…because you might be. If your outmatched…think of it as a learning experience…fyi I achieved master league after going against a gm friend of mine over 200 times as a plat 1. You’ll learn alot when you constantly lose to good competition. I enjoy being outmatched and being cheesed is my favorite as it will teach you how to react under pressure…which is essentially one of the most important aspects to get out of the lower leagues. Tl dr I’m out
Which is why you play 1K MMR under yours. Q.E.D.
I guess it depends on the purpose of the smurf… If they are playing people below their skill to avoid losses then they are toxic to the community. Its like going outside and playing a 10year old in basketball and bragging that you beat them.
If they are doing a tutorial or just trying to teach or give tips then that is ok…
Now there is this grey area… which is where people like beasty falls under. and that is the bronze to GM builds. where half of the things they do will work just because they are better than the person they are playing against. I guess if they announced what they are doing its ok. but what if they don’t announce. is it the same as the smurf that are playing people 2k mmr below their own. I don’t know.
Do you know Smurfs that brag about beating lower league players? Lol that’s the most absurd metaphor.
Do you know people who play ten year olds in basketball and brag about that, too?
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About those, I guess that could be seen as a second legit use for it as well. I mean once they’ve reached low enough, they do stop freelosing, and the purpose is to show builds appliable to specific leagues and share them into structured channels.
And indeed, the execution being that of a higher league player kinda decreases the relevance, though experimented casters do try to limit their APMs/multitask while doing so.
Those really are a minority though. 
Some actually do. It may no be so obvious especially if you are a fan of that person but there is some bragging involved if nothing else they go on an ego trip.
Didn’t ask that. Asked if you knew these alleged Smurfs.
Do I know these smurfs personally. no. not at all. but b/c I don’t know them doesn’t mean they don’t do it…
The same goes for people that beat 10 year olds in basketball and brag about it.[
I once created a topic registering the IDs of those I confirmed via the freelose method. There were a bit more than 50. The topic got closed 'cause it “degraded the wellbeing of use” of those users, lol.
As for if they do brag for it, most don’t wanna endure the trashtalk their smurfing induces. So a lot of them just disable chat with anyone not on their friendlist. Or will just deny it until there is too much evidence of it (and then switch to lowly insults). So most probably aren’t proud of it, and won’t want to talk about anything related to it.
But, in some rare/extreme case, some do boast about it, specially when they managed to win using some particularly humiliating/trolling strategy. JustMonica is an example of those. To give you an idea he smurfs 2500 MMR below his real one (5K MMR M2 KR) in gold league, just to troll the opponents, and then goes as far as sending his replays to casters.
_https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Age4eNRUMrk
Special mention to Lowko noticing the micro is much higher level than the played league. He is more right than he suspects on that one . ^^ Though he’s a M1-GM, so he doesn’t know about that kind of smurfing (hopefully one gets somewhat harder to troll as he ranks up).
As for it being absurd ; it certainly is.
thats funny because we get an update once per year and they “have their hands full”
Well, when they used to make one Community feedback per month/two months, I actually managed to get their attention on a handful of things. But that was before F2P brought us so many smurfs.
If we get a community feedback, I’ll try my luck once again, 'cause this is a pain from D3 to bronze (a gold leaguer from my clan boasted about trolling some bronzes recently ; to illustrate how pathetic this can get).
If you think no one has enough time to look into the account you are mistaking.
All ranked JustMonika’s _https://www.rankedftw.com/search/?name=JustMonika
None of the accounts show the major swing of the win/losses ratio. So algorithm put them on appropiate mmr level all…
You’re missing the original account :
_https://www.rankedftw.com/search/?name=justmonica
_https://www.rankedftw.com/ladder/lotv/1v1/mmr/?team=3073988
You can’t see if a player is smurfing by win/lose ratio (as long as the MMR has already been lowered in a previous season, if he freeloses 1 game over 2, current ratio will still be 50/50) ; you have to check their ingame history to spot the freeloses. And of course, he most probably won’t do it on his main account (cf. definitions above).
If you really think that the guy who played Z in Lowko’s video is a gold player, then you’re not good at spotting differences in skill. To me it’s obvious since the four first lings, which he microed so superiorly that he killed 10 probes while microing continuously over 3 minutes, while macroing at home ; and didn’t even lose them in the end. Do you commonly see 4 lings running into your base unharmed for 3’ minutes long ? You can’t do that if you’re a gold player (which by definition hasn’t mastered multitasking), and you couldn’t pull that unless your opponents’ reactions/micro are really inadequate (I even wonder if DroneTMX wasn’t rather a silver since he didn’t know how to properly wall, which is the very first thing you learn to know in PvZ). Hence the smurfing.
Now, it’s been years since I’ve been at this MMR, so I haven’t played this user personally for an equally long time. I do not know this DroneTMX, so I have no reason to lie or give false information. Can you say the same, Shadowstorm ? What’s your interest in this ?
If the player plays a decent amount of games and have a win rate of 50% in gold then it’s a high probability that there is something wrong.
Be it with his/her reaction speed (Disability) or with how this person is playing. So yes you can spot a GM smurfing in Gold. you have to check their ingame history to spot the freeloses.
If it’s not his/her main account how do you know that justmonica and justmonika are the same person?
Do you commonly see 4 lings running into your base unharmed for 3’ minutes long?
No, but because 90% of gold players I play on EU know how to wall vs zerg. be it main walling or Nat walling.
Between 3:10 - 3:40 I do not see anything that could suggest smurf status.
I fell suspicious of 3:49-4:00 zergling actions + building queuing. But not because I didn’t see similar actions in in gold, but because I do not see Attack command on Probe. But this could be a replay bug.
Another suspicious action is Baneling nest but without knowing JustMonika’s actions, it’s hard to say if it’s possible for the gold player or not.
Evidence aka replays that I can watch myself and judge base on it if he belongs or not in given rank.
Two questions then :
- a - If a player repeatedly leaves within the first 10 seconds one game right after having won the previous one, and almost always wins the ones he doesn’t leave, what will be his final winrate ?
- b - If you’ve got a player with a 50/50 winrate, how could you tell just by looking at his ratio if he left some of them within the first 10s or if he just played them regularly ?
- What do you conclude from a+ b ?
Of course you can : multitask, macro, micro, builds, creep, final APM & spending skill, previous leagues are all indicators. But unless the skill gap is massive (and it’s not that massive usually, most smurfs trolling lowleagues are below M1) the only way to be sure is to see the freeloses in the player’s history. Which can only be accessed by those having played him, AFAIK.
We can’t know for sure. Though this gamertag is infrequent enough among high level Z for the probability to be reasonably high.
But seriously, with a bit of nose, the gamertag in itself smells like trolling from 1 mile away.
Indeed, between 3:30 and 4:50 he microes his lings to dodge zealots, and precisely focuses some probes, while at home he queues drones, a queen, the baneling nest, and creeps with a new creep tumor.
I do currently play users betwen plat3 and D2, and I tell you half of the time there is nearly no creep at 7-8’ for P3-P2, the multitask often translate into one move-click or one aclick then the player either focuses on micro (and doesn’t produces anything), either on macro. And below diamond, most do not macro properly, even without multitasking. So it’s pretty obvious to me that a player who can pull such micro (no lings lost, 7 probes kills + 1 canon), while producing, constructing buildings and creeping properly… isn’t a gold, nor a platinum, nor even a diamond 2 player.
And if you don’t believe me, listen to what Lowko says himself :
_https://youtu.be/Age4eNRUMrk?t=259
Later in the video Lowko also mentions the Z player as an example of good macro, by getting the maximum amount of drones as fast as possible without dying. So if Lowko thinks his macro is also good, I’d rather believe him.
That’s a replay, you’ve got the actions on the production tab. If a player has micro, macro, multitasking and creeping acquired, then he has acquired SC2 mechanics. If you have acquired SC2 mechanics, then you’re not a gold player. It’s as simple as that.
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You assuming that players at the rank they belong to have control of win/lose ratio. They don’t.
The player in gold, silver, plat etc. will never have an exact 50% win rate. You will have a winning streak, losing streak and avrage days when you win and lose equally (Serral example: _https://www.rankedftw.com/team/850017/#td=region&ty=m&ra=0&tyz=1&tx=a&tl=1).
By looking at the profile with a decent amount of games (50 or more per season), anyone can spot an account that belongs to the player who intentionally stays at given rank
Tag is something that anyone can change for example:
_Sc2ReplayStats.com - Global Ladder Rankings Season 36 - Sc2ReplayStats.com
In the above link, you find 2 JustMonika but one of them leads to Russian/Ukrainian account.
at 3:30 there were 8 drones and 3 creep tumors(using 2 queens)
at 3:50 there were 2 drones, Lair(Main) and 2 extractors(Nat)
at 4:14 1 queen was build
at 4:36 1 queen was build and 13 drones
at 4:42 Baneling nest on Nat
Most zerg player will add zergling to contol group.
Drones, Queens nad Lair don’t require change of camera location and can be performed using only 1 control group.
Tumors are created by queens and if you diligently watch Zerg guide you should know that all zerg streamers say to have at least 2 queens in the control group to spread creep.
So we left with Nest and Extractors. and both of them were created at Nat where you should have Camera Location 2 set up.
switching between 2 control group and camera location for player with 100 APM and above is not hard, but we do not know JustMonika side so it’s hard to say exactly going on there.
Someone can have good moment and his macro/micro look M/GM like but moment later he loose unit’s like a noob. What is importend is consistance not a good moment.
JustMonika wins/lose ration is not big enough to judge if he is a smurf so the only other option is saying how consistent JustMonika is when playing Zerg and with SC2 features he uses.
You didn’t answer the questions.
Anyway, if you don’t freelose, you’re right you do not control your ratio. But if you do freelose let’s say 1000-2000 of MMR, then you’d be facing players two leagues or more under you, who just can’t defeat you. Unless you do leave voluntarily. In other words, if you do smurf you have control over your winrate ratio.
I have a VERY long series of samples in store. I can show you players whose history is 100% victories if you don’t believe me. The only way to achieve that is by smurfing.
Now, answer the two questions above.
That doesn’t mean it’s not another account of the same guy.
Most zerg players of what level ?
It’s completely obvious what’s going on.
Anyway, assuming you’re neither stupid nor trolling, we’re going to suppose we have a player who groups his lings, and his queens, has base camera setups acquired so he can rapidly micro, inject, and all of that while droning, doing buildings and even creeping out of his base. For you, 100 APM is enough to do that perfectly if I do understand well ?
A) 50/50
B) you don’t know but you do not have to know it.
C) smurf or troll.
The blog uses localization to protect the account so it is guaranteed that this person is not a dame guy.
I did it in silver but I people are stupid so gold and up. And anyone smart enough to watch the T/P/Z guide before playing given race.
Those Actions do not require high APM.
He did not do rapid macro he queue.
He queues move commands.
I did not see him doing inject between 3:20 to 4:60.
Yes you can even watch video again JustMonika have APM above 120 only when building units.