No respect for anyone who does it. Ruins the game. If you have a smurf to play with friends, then play normals. If you have a smurf because you can't do well enough in your own league and you need to stomp lower leagues, then I hope you're happy ruining the games for others.
Nothing creates more salt than losing a RANKED game and at the end, the most fed player on the enemy team says that they're smurfing. I thought they were good, but now I just think they're jerks.
Personally, I find smurfing to be a far more complex topic than a lot of people give it credit for. Here are some reasons I can see for people smurfing, for better or for worse:
Positive
Neutral
Negative
These are only some of the reasons a player might smurf, but right off the bat we can see that there are both positives and negatives to smurfing. Personally, I'd be interested to see how the following changes (not considering difficulty of implementation) would affect how people view smurfs:
Now, if we're just talking Ranked smurfing, it's very different because a ranked smurf will very quickly hit true MMR. I agree that it can be frustrating, but between the time it takes to get the smurf to level 30, rune/champion deficit, and how quickly smurfs ascend I'm not sure it's quite as significant a problem as you're outlining.
cmon man... jumping into a 1200mmr normal game and running up 20-30 kills on poppy is always a good time
Look, smurfing sucks when the smurfer is in your enemy team i get it. But, smurfing helps you determine if you deserve your league in your main account or not. You are gold in one account, but can you reach gold from scratch again? It is a good test for someone's skills. With some luck, you can get higher than you diserve if you have teams carrying your weight up in one case and being match with players that are worse than you. A second account with 0 ranked history and a fresh mmr can give you a new chance at testing your skills. Can you reach gold/plat/dia or wherever you were a second time from nothing? Also, if you smurf for that reason, if you succeed, you won't stay lowelo for long anyway. So, keep that in mind, smurfs don't stay at your elo for a long time anyway, instead they climb up faster than you. Unless they were not that good to begin with and can't carry themselves up. Smurfing is good at making some things clear.
Imagine Floyd Mayweather (world champion boxer) putting on a mask so nobody could tell it was Floyd Mayweather. He enters the Toughman contest (amateurs only, no professionals) under an assumed name. Obviously, because he's Floyd Mayweather, he annihilates everyone and wins.
That's what smurfing is like.
Imagine Adrian Peterson (top-tier American football player) dressing up in some random high school's football uniform and going out to replace the high school's starting running back. Nobody can tell who he is because he has a helmet on. Every play, the high school QB hands the ball off to Peterson, who overruns everyone on the enemy defense and scores a touchdown. Every play for Peterson's team results in a touchdown because nobody in high school can tackle a pro running back.
That's what smurfing is like.
Imagine Jon Favreau (the guy who writes President Obama's speeches) disguises himself as a student and joins a high school debate team. He's going to be miles above and beyond any other students because that's what he does for a living at the highest level. His team wins because they have a professional.
That's what smurfing is like.
Imagine Lionel Messi (considered the best soccer player in the world) putting on a uniform of a youth soccer team and going out on the pitch. After the first couple of goals Messi scores, the players are going to realize he's practically a god and pass to him every time, and every time they pass to him, he's going to weave through the pathetic defense of youth players and score.
That's what smurfing is like.
And that's why I hate smurfing. If anyone smurfed in regular sports, they would be shamed and disgraced. Nobody would have any respect for them as players or as human beings. They would receive death threats for beating up on children. Why is it not the same in League of Legends?
Do you mean smurfing in general, or only the type of people who smurf with the purpose of being matched with less skilled players? People smurf for lots of different reasons, and not all of them are bad or have inherently malicious intentions.
Yeah, smurfing really sucks for new players climbing because it makes them think that they're not improving at all. It takes a long time to climb from Bronze because the League system is doubtful and cynical about your real skill level. It gets depressing getting stomped by Diamond smurfs after dozens of games ignoring the smurfs.
I only have a smurf account to help my new friends, and to teach my lower tier friends. I have only done ranked 5s with friends, and we weren't even taking it to serious. I will never use the account for solo queue unless something happens to my main.
a lot more responses here than I thought I'd get, and good discussion. Daen has some good points, but regardless, it does not ease the salt. If you smurf in solo que, then you're just taking the fun out for 9 other players. The other 4 on the same team get a win, but it's too easy and not a challenge. The 5 against you are bored getting stomped.
Smurfing in normals is fine, Ranked is a different matter.
and then your team gets mad at you for feeding
Smurfing is toxic for the sole exception of learning roles. Pros: High elo players can learn other roles. (Only legit reason to smurf.) Can play with friends. (only normals) Cons: Stomps people Ruins MMR for lower-elo players. Ruins his own game (unless hes learning a role hes not familiar with). For some reason people thinks that winning a bronze match and mocking players is something to be proud of. The worst part is that theres people who elo boost and sell accounts.
