Smurfing

Is Smurfing Cheating?

This has been a long debate whether a smurf should be banned or the act of smurfing be banned entirely. I’ll be giving some arguments to why it should and shouldn’t exist.

Why its NOT cheating.

Sometimes it's partially Riots fault for this indirectly and directly. First off for an incredibly long time there isn’t any good resource for new players to get better at from Riot themselves. The video for new players is good but it doesn’t tell you stuff to do and not to do. Because the old tutorial lasted so long and created a huge skill gap the new tutorial couldn’t really keep new players to becoming better. I never tried the new tutorial but it looks good because they give you a pool of champions for you to play. Nonetheless the poor new-player experience lasted incredibly long and in ranked games especially bronze skills are incredibly diverse. Some players should be in gold but because they get matchmade with trash players it puts them down. Another thing is perma-bans. If you’re account got banned but you wanna play still play league there’s not much of an option. Another thing is Riot's matchmaking system, pre-rework akali says it better than anyone (http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Akali#Live) it's in the Jokes section. Another thing is runes. New players can only get 4 keystones. Some champions could’ve used Aery instead of arcane comet. Or used aftershock instead of grasp of the undying, and conqueror is just so much better on certain champions better than press the attack. Most supports couldn’t benefit without Aery or Guardians. Alistair has it the worst without hextech flash and spellbook or aftershock.

Why it’s Cheating

Having someone who played the game months or even years longer than you being matchmade with you along with several lower-skilled doesn’t create a fun environment for anyone but the smurf. Everything's better when you’re against people your own skill it brings a challenge but a fair challenge while making it fun. When you’re new to a game it's more about having a faster learning. It's not like playing a competitive ranked game where it's about who played it longer than others. This is why your first games are so much different than your ranked games it's about screwing up and learning from it without being punished and have a few laugh. But when you’re punished for it… It just doesn’t help.

I’m nuetral in this topic. I my enjoyment of the game in the early days has been ruined by smurfs a couple times but since I not have a smurf I can’t complain. These days I could’n’t go 5 game without a smurf. While on the journey of my main account I’ve only met a total of about 5 smurfs in general from lvl 2-20.