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Smurfing, and Why it's a Good Thing

GroundEffect·5/1/2015, 9:57:34 PM·7 votes·1,908 views
Gyazo

Alright now I'm speaking as both a person who smurfs and who has played against smurfs. At my highest rank as Master at the end of Season 4, I've played against and with LCS players. Reason I say this is that I've played against the highest level players in the game - so I know what it really is to play against a really good player.

Why do so many people say smurfing is bad? People say its bad because it's "unfair" to those low elo players. They say it isn't fair that they should have to be playing against someone so much better than them and that it's impossible to win against them. That could almost seem like a legitimate point. However, low elo players reveal why they are low elo when they say stuff like that. Most low elo players play to win. So if you at it from that perspective, you can see why low elo players hate playing against smurfs. Because they can't win against them. But that's why you are low elo! You play to win instead of playing to improve . (Disclaimer: This doesn't mean all low elo players play to win, there are those who currently play to improve and will climb throughout this season). I'm talking about the ones who are stuck in divisions and don't know why - well that's why.

League is a game about getting better - not winning. Let's take a Silver 5 playing against another Silver 5 in the toplane. The amount of mechanical and game mistakes they make is astronomical - they push lane all day, overextend, screw up trades, don't ward or have map awareness, etc. And because they are playing against an equally skilled player, no one learns because they get away with it. They actually get a false sense of security that they are playing well, when in reality they are both awful but don't realize it.

This is to help people realize that when you play against someone who is vastly skilled and above your level, look to see what he/she is doing differently from you and learn from that! As an AD main, I love playing against LCS players like Sneaky and Doublelift because of how perfectly they trade while not missing cs, how well they execute 2v2 fights in the bot lane. I learn when I play against the best of the best. Most of you will never play against that level of player, but when you are Silver and have to play against a Plat, keep that in mind and notice what he's doing differently.

(The screenshot is just an example of smurfing, mine specifically)

Edit: I know I am going to get a lot of low elo people raging and saying that all smurfs play on their smurfs to beat low elo players and make themselves feel good about themselves. For one, smurfs mostly smurf just so they can get another higher level account, not stay in an elo to beat low elo players. For two, ironically enough, a lot of you current low elo players complaining about smurfing, have not only most likely played on your level 20's but will smurf too at some point. So you're hypocrites =). Please go on though with the cliché complaints.

52 Comments

AMYS GRAVE5/1/2015, 10:26:19 PM12 votes

If you are playing against someone marginally better than you, there is the possibility to see how they are outplaying you. As in "they are playing just like me except for this one thing." which means you can see the differences. If you are in master then you can learn from playing against the pros because your skill differential isn't too large. If there is an enormous skill gap then there isn't really anything you can do because there is no mental reference frame for how they are playing because their play styles are so dramatically different that you don't know where to begin to improve. Playing against smurfs who are significantly better than their opponents cause an information overload where it is difficult to improve.

In short no, it doesn't help grade school basketball players to play against Jordan. It is just a discouraging unfair game.

yellowbricks5/1/2015, 10:35:13 PM5 votes

Keep waving your e-peen around trying to justify your ego trip. I bet you'd learn one thing getting thrown into a boxing ring with Mike Tyson having never worn boxing gloves before, that getting the shit beat out of you hurts. Fuck that self righteous posturing that people play this game to learn, I don't, and I'm sure there are others like me, it's a video game, I'm here to have fun. Then comes some piece of shit smurf to ruin the fun and either carry me to victory leaving me feel like I didn't earn it, or mercilessly slaughter me and my team insulting us in all chat.

There's no good reason to smurf. If you want to practice some role with no repercussions then you're a hypocrite, telling us to be blessed to learn from you ivory tower shits but turn tail and run away from fair fights to learn something new. Trying to get another diamond master account is just pointless e-peen waving though, judging by your post it seems like your MO.

In short, get the hell out of where you aren't wanted and stick with one account. You act like you're doing us a favor, piss off with that, no one wants to play against you mouthbreathers.

AtheosisX5/1/2015, 10:18:31 PM4 votes

You learn from playing against players that are better than you when they are only somewhat better than you and you can recognize what you did wrong to lose to them. You don't learn from being a bronze player getting stomped 30-0 by someone who plays at a Masters skill level. But good job trying to rationalize your toxic behavior...

disregardable5/1/2015, 10:02:36 PM3 votes

"No, see, it doesn't matter if I smash your faces in and you don't know what you did wrong. We're helping you improve just by being better than you".

I used to get matched against low gold-high silver players in Normals. There were games where I was the only Bronze player in the game (and I'm in Bronze 5). You know what happened? They brought pre-nerf Lucian into my Jinx and wrecked me. It happened over and over, and I had absolutely no idea why or how to fix it. I didn't learn anything from watching 17/0 Lucian 1v5 my team 10 times in a row. Then my MMR dropped to the point where I could actually understand how to defeat my opponent. Now I don't hate the game anymore. :D

But congrats on smashing some low elo kids faces in, I guess. You must feel so good.

BeatzBoyFTW5/2/2015, 6:36:54 AM3 votes

I may be Silver 3 & low elo (who is still on a verge to climb to Gold), and I must say this. I only wanted to improve myself by seeing what kind of mistakes I did with my roles when going against people to my level, such as Silver vs Silver & such. I want to know where's the point I have improved myself to know where the higher position I'm in.

But due to Diamond-Challenger people creating smurfs nowadays, which on top of my head you guys create smurfs because you're bored, you pretty much crashed the whole low elo balancing system. I'm here to be sure if I can crush most Silvers & Bronze if I got the rightful skills I may have earned, but with you smurfing people being here & beating me down constantly with your high elo Diamond/Master skills is just plain bullying. I don't see where I can improve from that. It's like those damn basketball high school boys thinking they are the king of their own school, and then went to the Chess Club to announce their "superiority" by punching the Chess member's face for some stupid goddamn reason.

I want to say this again. I want to improve to the point where I can actually be "promoted" to a point where I can actually fight against real Silver 1 & Gold division people, not against Diamonds/Masters who disguises themselves as Bronze 5 and fking up the matchmaking balance system.

Additional note: We also hate smurfs because they are the type of people who would troll for fun by afk-ing & being toxic.

The Whamboozler5/2/2015, 2:24:17 PM3 votes

Yeah, I'm gonna throw my hat in on the "OP is horribly misguided" idea too. Maybe at this point you love playing against people better than you (though if you're master that's VERY few people) but most league players aren't that close to the top. Playing against someone who stomps you that hard doesn't really teach you anything. You'll go out and die. So you'll hug tower... and die. So then you farm your jungle while they roam and mow down more of your team. Meanwhile your own team is raging at you for "letting their adc roam and snowball" and the game collapses into a ragefest. One of your teammates AFKs after his 5th death and no one else is even TRYING to win anymore, just arguing in chat waiting for the end. You learn nothing. You just play one horrible, one-sided stompfest, surrender as soon as you can, and then requeue again to hopefully be put against people at your own MMR.

Smurfing does not help the game. AT ALL. If you're a silver and you run into a smurf and get curb-stomped, that sucks... but you're probably already a committed player if you leveled to 30 and played enough ranked to get a rating. It'll just put you in a bad mood and then be forgotten. New players are who smurfing hurts most. For every new player who's seen it as a challenge, four new players have decided that it's not worth the stress and either stopped playing the game, or just played bots until level 30. Given how little you learn about in bots, I'd argue that the rampant smurfing in this game actually inhibits learning the game... since it encourages new players to play vs AI to avoid getting stomped horribly and bots teach you so little about the game.

People who want to learn the game will watch streams. They'll look up guides and strategy sites. They'll talk to their friends who play. From what I've seen the players who start off playing much better players and insist they're fine with it are the ones who started the game with at least one friend who played already, likely at a fairly high level. Those people were already committed to playing so they could play with their friend, they have someone holding their hand and telling them what to do as they go AND they have their own ringer to carry them through games. Now imagine you're starting league fresh and you're playing it alone. PvP is a hostile wasteland of NOTHING but people who will wreck your face. So what do you do? You don't play PvP. People learn and improve by steadily facing opponents who are close to their skill level or very SLIGHTLY above. Smurfs ruin low level pvp for the people genuinely trying to learn the game. They ruin plenty of other games too, but those new players might just put the game down and not come back due to how bad smurfing is at their level.

A sudden stomping by a smurf teaches you to improve at the game in the same way that a pro basketball player coming to your house and hosing you at 1v1 pickup street ball would teach you how to dunk. You're kidding yourself if you think getting stomped by a high leveled smurf helps said smurf's victims in any way. If you're already a devoted player all it does is waste your time in an unwinnable game before you jump into the next one. And if you're a newbie it just might be what drives you away from trying to learn the game at all.

TL:DR - The game would actually be GREATLY IMPROVED by the removal of smurfing. Smurfing is a horrible cancer that ruins the game for new players.

Edit: After reading some responses I can add this as well. Smurfing increases toxic behavior by a ton too. Not only does it piss people off to no end to get curb-stomped in an unfair match, but smurfs are often the players acting like jerks in chat to provoke people or doing dumb, trolly things because they don't care if their smurf accounts get banned.

Berry Állen5/1/2015, 10:18:43 PM2 votes

Smurfing is a terrible thing why would it be good. I do not wanna be blue and small all the time whilst gargamelle is hunting for my ass 24/7.

64931067_DEL5/2/2015, 6:42:25 AM2 votes

Why league place same elo people in same tier ? They can be better when they learn from some one just a little bit better, not some one who live in other worlds. Like a child 5 years old wont like to practice karate with a 15 boy. He cant learn anything, except the natural unfair.

Only Play Darius5/1/2015, 10:20:06 PM2 votes

When you smurf and your teammates feed hard, how do you end up winning?

UberAffe5/1/2015, 10:22:47 PM2 votes

I agree to a point. A bronze player playing against a plat or higher is not going to learn anything, they don't have enough base knowledge to identify what the difference is. A bronze playing against a silver/ low gold is close enough in skill that they should still be able to see difference in how they play.

GroundEffect5/1/2015, 10:52:52 PM2 votes

A lot of you low elo's who are raging and crying about smurfs now will eventually change your minds as you climb throughout the years. I was Bronze 5 back in the day, and used to think that Silver 1's were so good and that's all I wanted to be. Perspective changes as you climb. Most of you who are crying about smurfs are in your baby years of league. You'll get it eventually, this post was to help you speed up that process.

LifeCyclesTWA5/1/2015, 11:38:58 PM2 votes

AD Carey, the most impressive thing about this thread is not your rank, not your great string of victories, not the outcry of angry noobs...

AD Carey, can you tell me how you were able to pick Vayne every match? I tried the same thing back in S2 and S3 with Talon. I would say, "Mid or top Talon. Check my match history." I had some crazy average like 16 kills 3 deaths a game in ranked as Talon, but people would still say, "no mid or troll" and shit like that.

So please, how were you able to pick Vayne every game?

IcyPepper5/1/2015, 10:06:02 PM1 votes

I hear ya, but it's only up to a point

Players watch streams for a reason, but getting dominated by much, much higher elo players can only teach you so much. Sure, you can learn tricks to dominating the lane and balancing offense with cs'ing, but you can't learn how to defend or make a comeback against an opponent whose skill level far surpasses yours if you don't have a chance in the first place.

But hey, I'm used to playing against stronger opponents with my friends, so I kind of get it. But it has to be gradual, a consistent practice. Playing mostly your elo and suddenly a challenger smurf appears is one thing (you will get destroyed), but consistently playing against slightly better opponents is much better for practice. Take me for example. I can't lane for shit, and balancing aggression with farming is a pain the ass. But I main adc in ranked, because I have habit I've picked up from higher elos by trusting my teammates, utilizing map awareness, and focusing on objectives rather than flashy plays and kills. That's something you can pick up from much higher elo opponents (a fed Riven can die in a 1v5, after all), but people are unlikely to learn much if they're still at the solo carry mentality (although smurfs can be an eye opener that you do need your team).

yellowbricks5/2/2015, 3:18:14 PM1 votes

Ah, just read the op's edit, someone should pick up the phone cuz I fuckin called it!

Smurfs smurf not to feel good about themselves but to get another high level account... To feel good about themselves. What is the point in trying to get to diamond again? You know you can do it if you eschew enough of life's splendor to sit in your basement and get 6 diamond accounts, who cares about it? Do you brag to your fellow elite nerds saying yeah man I got 6 diamond accounts I'm so good?

There's no point to having more than one account, the only reason I can see is you plateau at a point and you're mad, elo hell is where you make it after all. So you go back down to where you have an actual chance of winning not through skill but just because you've thrown a wrench into match making, exploiting the system to go back to elementary school and wreck the grading curve for everyone else.

No one is impressed with your 6 diamond accounts, this isn't call of duty, there's no prestige system. it'd be more impressive if you took that time, applied yourself to your main and pushed through to challenger on the one account. I mean, you learn so much fighting people stronger than you, so what the hell are you learning down here with us? Go back to your main and climb the last of that Rocky peak. Unless you're scared of the challenge and don't want to learn?

Mandang05/2/2015, 3:41:01 PM1 votes

LMAO, high elo players aren't smurfing for the benefit of low elo players, they're ALSO doing so to win (by very large margins).

But, if we're so interested in raising cross-elo awareness, how about reverse smurfing? Maybe it would encourage more smurf teachers if we could bring bronze into their ranked games. After all, the game's about more than winning, right? It could help them learn how to carry harder!

If these smurfs are so interested in teaching lower players, there are more constructive ways to do it, ways that guarantee their efforts go to players who actually want the help - like mentoring. All smurfing does is ruin the matchmaker (and, thus, the quality of the game).