I'm new. So whats a smurf?

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Ah thank you. Do people do this to boost a new account to a high ELO in hopes to get recruited or something?

There's atleast two reasons to smurfing. One, some high ELO players just make a smurf account to see how fast they can get it to a similar ELO as their main or to have it as an alternative account, or they do it for their stream. Two, some players (most notably, the lower ELO players) make a smurf account because they want to have an easier time and enjoy stomping very low level players. There are some people though who make smurf accounts to play with friends who are just starting or just to see what it's actually like in the new player environment <(I did that once, the environment is very horrendous since low levels have to deal with the underbelly of the community, AKA all the low ELO players that want to make smurfs since they might've been banned on their main temporarily or are tilted/salty from their games)

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Ah thank you. Do people do this to boost a new account to a high ELO in hopes to get recruited or something?

Not usually. It's mostly to stomp new players...which doesn't work for more than a couple dozen matches because they end up playing against other smurfs doing the same.

Some very high elo players (mid/upper diamond and above) do it to see if they really deserved their rank by getting it again and to see how hard it is.

Others just want to play against their new friends, and playing on their main accounts would result in matches where the new players would get completely destroyed...which isn't fun for them. That works on occasion, but again hits the same issue as "regular" smurfs looking to beat up on new players. My lvl 20 smurf generally plays with gold and plat players now, so I can't use it effectively for new players anymore.

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Ah thank you. Do people do this to boost a new account to a high ELO in hopes to get recruited or something?

sometimes and this is less likely to be the case compared to people just wanting to face roll new players. i am and was a support main and never played mid lane champs, playing a solo lane like mid is a different dynamic then playing a duo lane, so in order to learn that at a level where i felt i wouldnt be over my head playing against people who main mid , i created a smurf where all i did was play mid to learn the role/champs ,yes i did have a bit of advantage compared to the new player (non smurf ) in game knowledge but i wasnt trying to faceroll that enemy i wanted to learn X champ in mid lane. so that is one reason why people may create smurfs.