And here we go for Bronze :
SMURFS REPORT W36-38
BRONZE LEAGUE
Still with the randomized procedure :
How to read : cf. first post (part II)
Method used : cf. dedicated post.
Quickie :
Among 105 users at bronze MMR :
- 28,57% of confirmed smurfs
(22.86% of freelosers + 5.71% of non freelosing).
- 71.43% to 41,91% of regular players.
Some (important) thoughts about this :
- I found 28.57% of smurfs over the 105 users I randomized, with 35 for each league tier. Would those league tiers be around the same size, one could extrapolate that proportion to the whole bronze league, however that is not the case : there were way less users in bronze 3 (500 players, 49% smurfs) than in bronze 2 or 1 (1600 and 5700 players respectively, 17 to 20% smurfs). So for my stratified sampling to be correctly interpreted, I must weight the tiers differently according to the proportion of players. So here are the corrected estimates :
Corrected by league’s population, there would be :
- 19.74% of smurfs.
- and 80,26% of regular players in the whole bronze league.
This is the estimate I will retain from this report. 
- Though of course imperfect, I still feel my criterias are a good compromise between specificity and accuracy, and so am satisfied with them. However, as I was closing-in to bronze 3, I was confronted to situations where there were less and less players by MMR point, and so I had to define rules for the randomization to apply efficiently. Those changes are minor, but for those interested, can be found here as version 1.1c.
FUN-FACTS
- Surnames pseudos/battletag seem to be common among smurfs, and that’s a specificity as the main benefit of pseudonyms for regular players would precisely be to conceal their usual name. So you’re matched with a player named John, Walter or Maria, that should rise an eyebrow.
- As I was surveying bronze 3 this week, I stumbled among a rather typical profile at first : he had a name that sounded like a silly pun, and with 2,400 games in his career, he felt too experienced for a bronze leaguer. Interestingly enough, his clan name also felt similarly silly. So I started to dig into his profile, and wasn’t disappointed to find an impressively high amount of freeloses (more than 30-40 I think). But what caught my eye, was that he had freelost to a guy of the same team… and when he won, that was the very same dude providing him a freewin. So I checked the clan, only to find that the third member also was a smurf : we had a silver-gold and a diamond who smurfed in bronze, and a master who smurfed in gold. I had found a smurfs clan.
FINAL THOUGHTS
That’s it folks, I said I wanted to survey the 4 metal leagues, and after many weeks, the objective is complete. I must say that task required for me to get knowledge and tools I didn’t have a first, and that coupled to the hints I had to define, and the hidden nature of my targets, I sometimes felt like some kind of secret service analyst (lol). Anyway, it was an intellectually stimulating challenge.
- Overall, with the exception of Bronze 3, there aren’t more smurfs in Bronze than in the other leagues. However, Gold put aside, we’re around 20% among the metal leagues, and this is a lot. Someone said « This isn’t League of Legends », but with one player over 5 smurfing in those leagues after only 2 years of F2P, who could say if one day SC2 won’t find itself in that very same spot ?
- There are about 50% smurfs in Bronze 3, and what happens there confirms what I thought about circumstances where the smurfs ratio becomes high : they end up playing each other. The smurfs team is an illustration of that, but the feedback one smurf had the honesty to provide on this thread a few months ago (where he said he did play other smurfs, and freelost in that case) also is.
- I have found the smurfs of some members of this very forum. I won’t give names of course, as I don’t want to have anyone individually targeted, but what struck me is that those were often among the most virulent individuals towards the balance, or daedgamers (users claiming since several years that SC2 is a dead game), or trolls. When I saw that, I suddenly understood that those people claiming the game was destroyed were in fact first hand witnesses, as they were among the very players who were trying to ruin it.
Lastly, the previous report didn’t raise any reaction. However, with it the thread did attract lots of views (more than 320), and that even while being in the abyss of a three weeks inactivity. That’s remarkable, and I can only hope some of the eyes apparently so interested were those of the devs. If you guys ever read this : don’t assume F2P won’t bring to SC2 what it did to LoL. Don’t let smurfs ruin the game from beginners to intermediate levels, or you will lose the former.
Now, of course it could be interesting to survey the diamond and masters leagues, possibly to redo platinum. I could also do a best-of about the hints you could get to spot a smurf on the loading screen. And I’ve got something about the different motivations behind smurfing that might interest the devs.
But some views on a thread, without comments, without likes, and with the blue ones remaining ever silent on the matter, aren’t enough to renew my motivation. So unless there’s some change, I can let my work as is. I will still wander around to exchange as any other community member though. And, since I’m now trust level 3, will use the opportunity to transform the first post into something really neat. 
See you around, folks !
