Why Free to Play made me a smurf

I play against so many free to play accounts now that are obviously smurfs that my MMR is below my actual skill level. I didn’t realize until recently that I have become a smurf myself. When I meet someone who is actually playing in their league I am better than them because my MMR is so much lower than it should be. And now I am the one accused of tanking my MMR to play against lower leagues lol.

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Probably one of the disgusting underlying cultures of this game. No one talks about how rampant smurfing is in the lower leagues. Like I’ve said many times, it’s a silent killer of this game for sure

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yes but another silent killer is inControl and Total Biscuit passed away. Those guys were honest genuine players. Then Hisky and Day9 left and all their viewers went to watch streamers and smurfs like avilo and beasty. That’s part of what killed the game. We don’t have good people to look up to anymore in the community and people are all learning from other toxic players doing “Bronze To GM” series. And people are giving them money and views and encouraging them to roflstomp lower skilled players. Whether any of you want to admit it or not things cascaded quickly after Total Biscuit and inControl passed away. Those guys were the only “good guy” bridges we had left between casuals and pros…

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This never goes away. Not even in GM. You will face pro players that dedicate their life to the game and they will trash you even worse than a master trashes a gold. At that stage is even more painful because of the Masters and GM ego lots of people have, so you better learn how to deal with it now. Is part of the game, learn to accept it cry babies.

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I’ve said this several times in the past on accounts that got banned and people like you scoffed at the idea lol. Such a hypocrit.

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It is way overblown. You encounter smurfs here and there but it is not as prevalent as most people make it out to be, it just feels like a lot because it feels awful when it happens. I would say that unranked in my opinion is a much more extended method for smurfing.

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or the player base just dies and no one cares about this comment at all lol bc activision will throw it away for its lack of player base… that opinions like yours destroyed… your own playground

Wrong, there are many streamers who are nice and don’t smurf.

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Newsflash! Already no one cares what is said here. We are just here to vent in the void with other Star Crafters and have some laughs. StarCraft will never die.

??? You need to be banned again. Link me to a post where I’ve said otherwise. There are so many posts where I put down smurfing. They shouldn’t let recently released mental asylum residents on the forums. Seriously.

I know people say smurfing is a thing all the way up to GM, but in diamond (low and high) I pretty much never meet an actual smurf. People who have been masters before? Sure. But smurfs? Very rarely.

Worth keeping in mind that just because someone was ranked higher in the past doesn’t mean they are smurfing.

Sounds like it’s much more common lower down the ladder though =/

Nah you didn’t become a smurf, because :

  • The MMR decrease in intermediate leagues is global. All the other players of those leagues do face smurfs as well, and so little by little the average MMR does decrease. Smurfing is one of the reasons of that, but since the pressure is the same over the other regular players, it means the players you’ll meet with the same MMR faced the same difficulty level.
  • Second, smurfing is a deliberate attitude. The initial definition was closer to alternate account, but common smurfs do either freelose (to avoid gaining MMR), or create new accounts repeatidly in order to do full ladder climbs. So if you do not lose deliberately, nor spam accounts, you’re not a smurf. :wink:

SC2 isn’t dead from a player base point of view. Yet there’s been reports of newcomers quitting because of smurfing. And there are some leagues where it is so intense, the smurfs have almost the same probability of playing each other than of trolling a regular player. Which leads to massive mutual freelose sequences, as they don’t want to face a challenge, and so they keep freelosing until the undesirable opponent is matched with someone else. Which, result of their own stupidity, can sometimes take a long time. :joy:

It is a matter of quantity, which indeed varies with leagues.

  • If you’re a gold player, you’re in for 1 smurfs over 4 players average (which means it can get much higher than that due to the randomness of the circumstances), while it’s closer to 1 over 5 in metal leagues, and a bit lower than that in some particular ones. Bronze 3 have an extremely high smurfing rate though ; but that’s an exception.
  • It’s been reported to me that there’s a drop in smurfing frequency around diamond 2 or 1. And that’s logical : most smurfs are diamond leaguers, implying most of them can’t actually smurfs in diamond 1 since it’s above or equal to their real skill.

More about it in that thread, for people wanting the precise numbers. :slight_smile:

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Well well well. 20characters

LOLOLOLOL you are baiting me so hard into insulting you on a level that would get me warned. I LITERALLY said that person is probably getting a good number of smurfs. Let me explain. There is a common misconception among many newer/unobservant players about how matchmaking works. Matchmaking doesn’t care what league you are in or what border you have - it cares only about your MMR. This guy probably things that everyone he’s come across has intentionally lost games to get to his level and smurf, but that is not always the case. The player could be on a losing streak or be just as bad at the game as he is. And just like with this season, there was a similar bug in the last season that gave people free master rank, I think? It may have been stomped out fairly quick, hard to remember at this point. This guy probably thinks anyone with 200 APM+ is a smurf, but the reality is that many low level players like to slap their keyboards to boost their APM and pretend like they are outplaying their opponent by a huge amount when they are not. I’ve made this point many times too.

I LITERALLY SAY RIGHT HERE I’M SURE YOU’RE GETTING A GOOD NUMBER. READ CLOSELY NEXT TIME (EVEN THOUGH YOU NEVER DO)

To sum it up so that your tiny brain can comprehend, yes there are a lot of smurfs on the ladder, but it’s not 80% (could be as high as 50%). People just like to convince themselves of that because they see a scary APM or are unaware of seasonal ladder bugs or see an account with the default portrait.

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First words of the sentence, “I highly doubt it”.

You’re a total fraud. Just here to stir up garbage and deny every single thing thats wrong with the game like you think people are going to listen to you. Then you go “gee i wonder why so many people feel this way about the game but they couldnt possibly have a point because theyre not me”

It’s actually horrifying how much you’re still trying to press the issue despite how awfully wrong you are. You are so desperate to twist my words and develop some kind of crazy narrative around me that has 0 holding. I couldn’t even convince you that someone holding down 2 keys to get 1000 APM is doing less than someone with 100 APM and actually playing the game. I can’t convince you that matchmaking is purely based on MMR (not by borders). I can’t even show you that you are twisting my words as you literally do it right in front of me as we speak. I don’t even know how you know how to breath by having an IQ less than a monkey. Believe what you want at this point. Just know that everything you believe is pretty much the exact opposite of reality.

u cant even follow your own arguments anymore.

-i never said a thing about apm
-i never said a thing about match making.

All i ever said is that youre a hypocrit which you are
and smurfing is all over the place whether you want to believe it or not.

-I brought up APM because

  1. You most likely believe a low diamond Terran with 200 APM is significantly better than a Protoss at high diamond with 120 APM. No I will not keep arguing with you on this as you are beyond help
  2. The guy was complaining about smurfing and exaggerating about 350 APM opponents. My point is high APM is not necessarily an indicator of smurfing. No I will not keep arguing with you on this as you are beyond help
  3. You and that whiner on the post you linked have a history about whining about APM = skill, and that is most definitely not the case. That’s why I bring up APM. The fact that you can’t understand outright proves you cannot follow any string of words you try to put together

-I brought up matchmaking because

  1. Many players including the guy you linked have a serious misconception on how matchmaking works. No I will not repeat myself for your tiny brain to comprehend what I am saying.
  2. I’m trying to explain possibilities as to why the majority of his opponents are NOT a smurf. How do you not understand this? How do you breath? Seriously?

Sorry, I could go on, but I can’t be bothered to entertain delusional people. When I talk with people on the forums, the end result is usually some common ground or agreement or understandable disagreement. When I talk with you and a select few others, you are clearly trying to drag me down into some endless sink hole which leads to absolutely 0 fruitful discussions. It’s very clear you are trying to drag me down into some silly contradiction and make me trip on my own words, and when I refuse to do so you hurl random insults at me. That’s why I can’t be bothered anymore on this thread. I’m not going to apologize for you not being able to understand what I am saying. That’s not my responsibility. It was your parents’ responsibility to get you through grade school and learn basic reading comprehension.

Lambo, harstem and uthermal. 3 players 1 from each race that helps their viewers improve, makes guides and none of them smurfs.

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As soon as I read one thing in your wall of text that isn’t accurate I dont even bother reading the rest of your posts. Needless to say I don’t read very much of what you type.

-I have NEVER argued that APM = skill.
-I am much higher than “low diamond”
-At least half of the games I play are against unranked opponents who never miss a beat and have perfect control beyond their mmr. So they may not technically be a smurf but they are playing below their true MMR by playing unranked games. Yes it does work this way for unranked matches if you deny it you’re a fool.
-I literally played a zerg yesterday with 690apm, however it was as protoss so I won easily LOL.

Take a lap kid.