The Hidden Impact of Smurfing...

Players throughout the ladder come across smurfs. Not the little blue characters but people playing on alternate accounts below their true Elo. So what drives people to do this and should it be allowed? Well definitions may help us come to a conclusion.

For me, smurfing is the deliberate loss of Elo (or creating a new one) to play at a lower level than they are capable of. For others, smurfing is just having an alternate account of any kind. My question to them is what’s the point? Why have an alternate account if it is the same level as your main one?

When DE was first released one infamous player set out on a mission to see if 0 Elo was possible. This meant hundreds of games deliberately lost in order to test it. I imagine at first that they were able to try stupid strategies that were unsuccessful resulting in a loss, but as they dropped lower and lower, these sub-optimum plays would likely have still been victorious - as King Boo says often “if you go low enough, anything can work”. This all took place in the early days of the game, a time before penalties for early resignations but it still would have involved a large number of games and opponents.

Race to the bottom: the first player to reach 0 Elo

This experiment was all on his main account (to my knowledge, he doesn’t have multiple). And so the problem came when he tried to get back to his real rating. In hindsight, this should probably have been done on an alternate account, one that was then forgotten about once the bottom had been reached. Instead, he was able to defeat these lower rated players easier than he should have on a matchmaking system. And yet, as he was not doing this just to win easier games against players far below his natural level, I feel less uncomfortable with this. My judgment may have been clouded as he is a friend of mine but this also means that I know a bit about his character. This was all done to see if it was possible and not for the easy victories.

There are other well known people that do this. They could play regularly around the 2k-2k2 level, winning and losing comparable numbers of games. Instead, they choose to go on long losing streaks (often with very short games, just to avoid the temporary ban from instant resignations) just to settle at a level 200-300 Elo points below their own (and sometimes even more than that!). The worst of these even add in extremely toxic comments to their opponents when actually playing around their level.

Toxic player drops hundreds of points to bully lower players

I really question the mindsets and motivations of these players. Why are they playing the game? It feels like they are only interested in winning games. They throw away points to be able to play against much lower players, completely eliminating the challenge for themselves. If this is the main aim, why not just play against the AI rather than ruin the experience for lower level players? A lot of these smurfs have managed to reach 2k+, a target that many strive for. They are undoubtedly good players so why not continue trying to improve? I just don’t get what they are getting out of the game by playing like this.

A smurf's win rates through the game

This makes me evaluate my own way of playing the game. I only have one account. Anything I do on the 1v1 ladder, quickplay, lobbies, or team games is on that one account. Sometimes (like this week) I play some games after having a few drinks. So on Tuesday night, I spent the evening with my dad, having a few beers and sharing a bottle of wine, before queuing on the ladder. I played two pretty long games and lost both (my own arrogance reassures me that the alcohol made me sluggish and I’d have won otherwise). This wasn’t a big loss of points but on other occasions if I have some drinks and play a longer session, I could potentially lose a more significant number, putting me below my actual level. Does this mean I’m smurfing? It doesn’t sit right for me to have a separate account for this but I’m not sure why.

On other occasions, I’ve also undertaken a series of challenges (such as Huns fish trap food eco on Acropolis) all on my one and only account. Some of these went badly and I lost points. Sometimes I would lose several in a row and then take on opponents lower than my actual level. Is this smurfing too? I found these challenges to be a really fun way to play and helped me to have a healthy view of Elo, realising that improving my gameplay will develop my rating and not the other way around. Was this unfair on my opponents as I dropped down though?

A large number of the high level player base has alternate accounts. Some of these have used them for various challenges along the way (e.g. Tatoh’s Feudal Voy account). I can understand this, some tournaments use the ladder for their seeding or even for qualification requirements. If they used their main accounts for challenges like this, it could jeopardise their entries to tournaments. As streamers, they need to be active and need to be entertaining, challenges are a way that they can do this. It’s understandable but is it fair on the lower level players they beat along the way? I am confident I would lose to Tatoh regardless of the restrictions he sets himself! But I would enjoy the contest and hopefully learn from it. However, these challenges from the streamers normalises the behaviour to the community.

Some players, when signing up for tournaments that use the 1v1 ladder for seeding, use their main account to get into the position required and then stop using it. This is completely understandable but still controversial, what if they use their second account and lose against someone that then takes a different player’s spot? Shouldn’t the jeopardy of losing be on them rather than another player?

Then there are the pros like MbL who plays on the 1v1 ladder for most of his time on the game. Late at night when he is queuing, there are often few other high level players active. So he created extra accounts to have shorter queue lengths. This works, up until these accounts reach the level of his main, at which point we are just left with several MbL smurfs in the top 10 (as has happened on many occasions). This is another understandable use. He knows that queuing up at that time will result in long wait times to likely play people 200-300 rating below him (on a good day) and so he is being efficient. He isn’t doing it to have easy games but to get matched up quickly.

For some people there is a clear difference between smurfing and ‘tanking’. They have no issue with people smurfing but do not appreciate players deliberately lowering their elo to have easier wins. But the people smurfing for whatever reason do end up playing people that should be rated far below them. If they match up on their main account and win, most of their opponents will lose 1 or 0 points. But by being on their own lower rated account, these smurfs will take higher amounts of points away from their opponents. I’m split on this. The experience will be great for players trying to improve but they would likely still get this experience without the smurf accounts being needed. I get that streamers don’t want to be waiting for long queues to match them with lower level players but I feel that if this is their main concern, they should organise their streaming time to match up with similar level players.

But what could be done to prevent or discourage it? As things stand, everyone starts at 1000 Elo on a fresh account (an established higher team game rating will give you a higher starting 1v1 rating). Could there be a way to change this so that if you are using family sharing, your new account starts at the average of the other accounts linked to it? This would solve some of the problems but it would have no impact on the players ‘tanking’ but it may dissuade the likes of MbL from creating new accounts (or from playing the ladder at all!). There could be a move by tournament organisers to prevent this by using average Elo of all accounts active on the ladder or their most recently used account for seeding in tournaments. While I think this would be a huge deterrent to some of these aspects (I doubt that any major tournament host will do this), it doesn’t stop the ‘tanking’ either which I think is what bothers more of the community.

When I started this, I held the belief that smurfing could be ok in certain situations (specifically the challenges or shorter queue times). But the more I have considered, the more downsides I can see to each argument for it. Whatever way you look at it, smurfing (in any form) is likely to have a negative impact on someone else. I don’t approve of it but I am at a loss as to how it could be prevented.