Why Smurfing is more toxic than flaming, inting, or trolling...
In my opinion smurfing, defined here as someone from high elo purposely playing ranked in a much lower elo, is much more toxic than flaming, inting, or even trolling. It's not fun to go into a ladder match and get stuck playing against someone who is way better than you. Just in and of itself it's incredibly demoralizing and frustrating. Just like it's not fun to get flamed or have a teammate int or troll. However, that's not where the pain ends. Smurfing, unlike other forms of toxic behavior, is a bit more complex and insidious in its effects on the game.
First and foremost, smurfing causes a complete loss of agency for all non-smurf players. I can mute a flamer or try to talk down a raging inter/troll, and a lot of the time it's still possible to win. However, put me against someone who actually belongs several leagues above me, and I've lost all ability to realistically impact the game. Actually, this is true regardless of what side the smurf is on. I was recently in a match where I was having a bad game. But we had some smurf in midlane who hard carried. I literally could have sat in a bush for the last several minutes or fed through the early game of the match (honestly, that second part might not be super hypothetical) and it wouldn't have mattered. By virtue of us having a highly skilled smurf on our team, the individual performances of my teammates and I (or more importantly, that of my opponents) were rendered literally meaningless. You can have the game of your life and still lose badly if there's a smurf on the other team.
Secondly, and perhaps most significantly, smurfing actually causes other toxic behaviors. You get some smurf in top lane, next thing you know your top laner is feeding (through no fault of his own), people are raging at him, and he starts trolling, inting, or just goes afk. So not only are you playing against someone way better than you, you're also dealing with a bunch of pissed off teammates who are raging at each other and/or trolling/going afk.
Last but not least, other types of toxic behavior are often reactionary. Someone gets pissed because their own team banned their champ, or they're frustrated because someone else is feeding, etc and they react poorly. But purposely playing in a league far below your own just so you can ROFL stomp less skilled people who are trying to climb the ladder takes a special kind of premeditated douchebaggery. You can't just go into a much lower elo, you first have to get a separate account that will let you play there. And let's face it, if your main account is Gold or higher (and you actually earned that rank legitimately) you generally speaking aren't going to start in Bronze 5 naturally unless you purposely throw games or go afk (both of which clearly violate Riot's TOS).
Generally speaking, I'm under the impression that most Smurfs don't actually go to that much trouble. They typically just buy an account or play on a friend's (you gotta love those games where you get ROFL stomped by a Vayne in a Silver match only to visit their op.gg page and find out they've been a top lane bronze player for the past three seasons and have no previous games on said Vayne). In other words, I would argue that most smurfs (again, here defined as high elo players playing in low elo ranked) break Riot's TOS right off the bat before they've ever played a game.
(SIDE NOTE: I've got nothing against people having multiple accounts. I have three. I do have an issue with people purposely subverting the MMR system in order to gain an unfair and abusive advantage in ranked games).
TLDR Smurfing, as defined here, takes away other players ability to meaningfully contribute to a game (at which point, what's the purpose in playing). Smurfing tends to generate other toxic behavior as people don't tend to like getting ROFL stomped and don't always react well to it. And smurfing, unlike other toxic behavior, is by its nature premeditated. You have to plan ahead to be a douche. It's not over reacting to a situation most would find frustrating, it's purposely taking actions you know are going to negatively impact other players.
In my opinion, people who engage in this kind of behavior should have their main accounts and IP addresses suspended, and if the behavior continues, banned altogether.
