Does smurfing dumb down your skill in league of legends?

HideInGranny·1/10/2016, 7:08:17 AM·4 votes·2,356 views

Through my experiences of creating an alternate account I have been able to pinpoint what new people do wrong compared to my level of play. I also see fellow bronzies just as myself play all the time to try and take advantage of these lower level players. I've noticed that whenever I did play on my alt (which I haven't for months) that my gameplay with my main account has been very dumbed down compared to what it use to be before playing on the alt. Have you guys tried this? What about higher elo smurfing? Please give me feedback so I can get a nice feedback sandwich going here.

[zombie-nunu-bummed] "Licking doorknobs is illegal in other planets" - Martin Luther King Senior

8 Comments

tseihei1/10/2016, 11:15:08 AM2 votes

I am Plat 1 currently, and my smurf is in Gold 1 currently. From my experience of smurfing, I have came to the following conclusions:

While many people say High plat/Low diamond are the worst places to be for toxicity, I have found personally that there is a higher concentration of negativity in High gold and low level accounts specifically. Silver seems about the same, and I haven't really ever played against bronze, so I don't know about that elo.

Initially I had found that playing on a smurf made me play worse, but upon looking into it further I was actually playing the same as far as win rates, but I was noticing how bad I was playing once I went back to my main. I believe this is due to the feeling of being strong on the smurf, and then weaker on your main raises this mentality.

Smurfing in the long run made me better at playing. While I didn't improve my mechanics much (a weak point in my gameplay,) I was more open to trying new champions and roles on my smurf. I was also more open to finding the limits of the champions I was playing just by being less of a coward. This gained knowledge, in the long run, actually makes me better on my main.

So in short, smurfing can make you more prone to tilting due to the changes in people you are playing against, can make you feel, but not necessarily play worse, and actually make you a better player overall.

ModWuks1/10/2016, 12:13:25 PM1 votes

Season 5 Diamond 5 here. Every season, I always have a slump while climbing. Oftentimes, these losses lead to a whole lot of tilt and self-doubt on whether I'm really at the skill level of the rank I want to be. My response to this was to make a smurf; well, 2 smurfs to be exact. I spent a good amount of time leveling up those accounts to 30 and then spent a lot of time refining my champion pool without the risk of losing MMR on my main. Being able to freely practice a champion without the stress of possibly demoting on my main allowed me to try some pretty cheesy things like starting enemy red jungle as Heimerdinger, or 2 man sneaking Baron at 20 minutes with Heimerdinger, or starting with x or y item as Heimerdinger (you get the idea). Smurfing allows you to remain in a competitive atmosphere, gain confidence, and learn without worrying about demoting/losing LP on your main.

Diamond 5: http://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=Wuks Platinum 2: http://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=DiamondEagles Gold 1: http://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=BronzeEagles

TouchpadExpert1/10/2016, 8:18:27 AM1 votes

Depends on how long you're doing it for. Like if I am down there playing 4+ games in succession then immediately throw myself back into my main ELO I notice a difference. But if its just a couple of games I don't notice anything significant.

The Bearded Bard1/11/2016, 10:56:57 AM1 votes

Pretty much. It's just like I tend to play worse in smash bros after scrubbing people that are bad at the game because you pick up habits that absolutely destroy them but won't work at all against good players.

Taric the Gay1/11/2016, 3:35:54 PM1 votes

You need a different mindset to succeed in each tier of play. The lower you are the more self-focused you have to be because your teammates cannot be relied upon to pick up the slack. Higher up you have to be willing to forego self-glory in the best interests of the team, like sacrificing yourself to take a key objective. You have to embrace the common mindset of those around you and be better at doing what it is that they do at that level.

From what I have seen in my 3 levels of play is that Bronze is in it for the glory of having their names next to "legendary" status. They would rather spend 3 of their guys chasing a Bard through the enemy jungle instead of dealing with the Jax who is on the opposite end of the map beating down 2 towers and halfway to taking an inhibitor. Gold usually makes the right decisions but are sloppy in how they execute the plays. They will know enough to take dragon but will lose 3 guys in the process of taking it and coincidentally a tower then come back and try to start a team fight instead of taking a tower on the opposite end of the map. Silver is annoying in that they are so wishy washy. Some times they will chase down a kill but other times they will try to take out a tower. A lot of the time they will try to do both at the same time and fail at both only to get aced by the enemy team who may or may not use this advantage to take an objective... but usually they spend the time free farming somewhere. I won't comment on Platnium or higher as I have not ranked beyond that on my own.

Myrmiron1/11/2016, 3:49:26 PM1 votes

I play only Irelia so my gameplay never really suffered from smurfing. I think people who play multiple champions could get worse at the game by smurfing because low level players aren't as challenging, so they don't get enough practice to stay skilled on all of their champions. For me it doesn't really matter at what level I play Irelia, because I'm not challenger I can take advantage of other people's mistakes no matter their elo, and Irelia IS A GOD when it comes to taking advantage of mistakes. My accounts are ranked at Dia 5, Plat 2, Plat 5 and again Plat 5 by the way.

Ward and Peel1/11/2016, 10:51:00 AM1 votes

yesh. it does lol

but if you recognize how poorly your doing and correct it then should be good