Why do i have to lose lp just because someone else has no life and decides to smurf? So what little fun i do get from this game just gets shut down with 0 chance to win the game just because the other team has a smurf. I love losing all of the lp i just tried so hard to get just because this guy has no life and cant actually win his games so he makes a smurf and then just dumpsters low elo players just to make himself feel better.
Qzply765 votesGet good, and beat them
Skrix1 votesCan't get out of elo hell with bot lane 0-10 and a tower down at 7.5 mins in.
Dextraos4 votesCan't get out of elo hell with bot lane 0-10 and a tower down at 7.5 mins in.
That's the low elo mentality. Stop blaming your teammates. I bet you are not proactively influencing the game so that you can win. If you are in elo hell (silver, bronze), players on the enemy should be horrible as well. Why aren't you crushing them and going 10-0? That is what a smurf would do.
Advice from a current Diamond player:
Quit bitching about your team and get good.
Qzply762 votesSorry to burst your bubble but that shit happens in literally every elo.
Lucian Waifu1 votesSorry to burst your bubble but that shit happens in literally every elo.
Doesn't happen in challenger!!!!
Qzply761 votesMaybe not, but every elo before that.
DrCyanide2 votesIt's always funny how high level players will defend their smurfing, but when the shoe's on the other foot (aka: they're playing with a boosted player on their team) suddenly they don't like this whole not playing with/against players your own skill level thing.
Skrix1 votesI agree with you.
Taric the Gay1 votesI am a smurf. But I only did it in order to introduce a friend to the game. I wanted him to have a nice positive first impression of the game since the league community is notorious for its toxicity. I wanted there to be at least one person with a positive attitude on the team for him.
But I only play support when I smurfed and only Taric because it is the hardest role to carry from and because Taric was arguably the worst support at the time. I also named myself in such a way to make it blatantly obvious that I am the smurf which is like saying "please come camp my lane." In a normal game all I am able to accomplish is shut down the enemy bot lane from snowballing and use wards to tip off where the enemy jungles is. My noob teammates still have to carry themselves to victory.
My friend has since reached level 30 so I usually only log in here to play bot games since that is where I am most likely to meet new players and teach them the game. I like teaching new players.
So am I evil for smurfing?
Yang in 20201 votes[{quoted}](name=Taric the Gay,realm=NA,application-id=cIfEodbz,discussion-id=EhY5HsAK,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2017-05-11T14:34:42.014+0000)
I am a smurf. But I only did it in order to introduce a friend to the game. I wanted him to have a nice positive first impression of the game since the league community is notorious for its toxicity. I wanted there to be at least one person with a positive attitude on the team for him.
But I only play support when I smurfed and only Taric because it is the hardest role to carry from and because Taric was arguably the worst support at the time. I also named myself in such a way to make it blatantly obvious that I am the support which is like saying "please come camp my lane." In a normal game all I am able to accomplish is shut down the enemy bot lane from snowballing and use wards to tip off where the enemy jungles is. My noob teammates still have to carry themselves to victory.
My friend has since reached level 30 so I usually only log in here to play both games since that is where I am most likely to meet new players and teach them the game. I like teaching new players.
So am I evil for smurfing?
See, this ^ This is what smurfing should be about. I personally don't have an issue with smurfs in general. However, in practice it is unfortunately abused a fair amount, and infinitely more than it should. Smurfing to help a friend out is kind of important because otherwise your significantly higher mmr would pit your friend who's new to the game against people who clearly are veterans. As it is now, smurfing is the best way to help your friends new to the game without ruining their experience.
I also sort of agree with the players who smurf for their 'unranked to Masters' type stuff. I say 'sort of' because it's still unfair to their opponents depending on where their first rank for the season/series starts. That player may start from Bronze, but they sure as hell don't have the skill set of one. But I also understand that once a player reaches Diamond or what ever, and if they're a content creator, it's hard to demonstrate certain things when all you can play with are other Diamonds and maybe a few Plats or even a Masters here and there. A Diamond player might want to demonstrate that it is possible to carry a low elo game or something of that sort. So I get that.
I just wish there was a way without ruining the ability to smurf at all to lower the amount of people who smurf for purely selfish reasons such as accumulating smurfs to certain lower ranks to sell off for a profit or, as mentioned by another poster, just for the ego comfort of stomping on players clearly less skilled than them.
The middle ground argument I hear for smurfing is the problem of how long higher elo players have to wait to get into a game. For some it's literally hours just for one ranked game. And that is honestly frustrating. Unfortunately many of them have decided smurfing is the solution so they hop down to lower elos where they have an unfair advantage, not to be mean to other players, but simply because they want to play and want to get into a game in a more reasonable amount of time. The problem with this solution is it's a self-feeding cycle. The more higher elo players that do this the less there will be to que up for ranked in the first place, thus increasing the wait times, causing more to smurf, and the it goes on and on and on. Whereas if more of them went back to their own elos there would eventually be less waiting time, although it would still be awhile but that's the nature of being better than most.
Taric the Gay1 votesSee, this ^ This is what smurfing should be about. I personally don't have an issue with smurfs in general. However, in practice it is unfortunately abused a fair amount, and infinitely more than it should. Smurfing to help a friend out is kind of important because otherwise your significantly higher mmr would pit your friend who's new to the game against people who clearly are veterans. As it is now, smurfing is the best way to help your friends new to the game without ruining their experience.
I also sort of agree with the players who smurf for their 'unranked to Masters' type stuff. I say 'sort of' because it's still unfair to their opponents depending on where their first rank for the season/series starts. That player may start from Bronze, but they sure as hell don't have the skill set of one. But I also understand that once a player reaches Diamond or what ever, and if they're a content creator, it's hard to demonstrate certain things when all you can play with are other Diamonds and maybe a few Plats or even a Masters here and there. A Diamond player might want to demonstrate that it is possible to carry a low elo game or something of that sort. So I get that.
I just wish there was a way without ruining the ability to smurf at all to lower the amount of people who smurf for purely selfish reasons such as accumulating smurfs to certain lower ranks to sell off for a profit or, as mentioned by another poster, just for the ego comfort of stomping on players clearly less skilled than them.
The middle ground argument I hear for smurfing is the problem of how long higher elo players have to wait to get into a game. For some it's literally hours just for one ranked game. And that is honestly frustrating. Unfortunately many of them have decided smurfing is the solution so they hop down to lower elos where they have an unfair advantage, not to be mean to other players, but simply because they want to play and want to get into a game in a more reasonable amount of time. The problem with this solution is it's a self-feeding cycle. The more higher elo players that do this the less there will be to que up for ranked in the first place, thus increasing the wait times, causing more to smurf, and the it goes on and on and on. Whereas if more of them went back to their own elos there would eventually be less waiting time, although it would still be awhile but that's the nature of being better than most.
The people who smurf from unranked to masters really shouldn't. If it was one person doing it to show how to carry out of that low ranked tiers it would be fine. But hundreds and thousands of higher ranked players do that which subverts the integrity of low rank games. Its frequent enough that every third game or so had someone who is doing this or something like this. It makes legitimately climbing out harder because that Silver V in your game is actually a Diamond II in disguise and his Silver II buddy is Platinum IV on his main. Play ranked on only one account and go "experiment" on any other account in normals or bots.
When you make a new account the game will ask you how much experience you have with MOBAs. I think there's 4 or 5 options ranging from "none" to "I am an expert at this style of game." Your choice will match you up against players who answer similarly. I wound up choosing the middle option I think. The downside to this is that its an honor system and the average player just isn't honest when they go smurfing. They want those easy match-ups at the start because wins accelerate growth and IP gains faster than losses. This is Riot's initial and only attempt at weeding out smurf players. It needs to be elaborated upon to say the least.
