The Dark Reality behind VALORANT... (Smurfing & Black Market) 

glad someone finally spoke out about this 🫡

The black market for Valorant is still young and not as lucrative, not to mention, it doesn't really bring any money to Riot so I am pretty sure they are working hard on solving this. As for the smurfing problem, that's a whole different story, it's one of the reasons Valorant has been able to stay trendy on social media, getting rid of smurfing would be equivalent to shooting themselves in the foot because by extension of getting rid of smurfs, they would have to ban all these content creators who are singlehandedly carrying Valorant on social media - either that or they lose credibility for not upholding their own anti-smurf rules if they decide to take that path.

Wasn't expecting a content like so from you, and it actually rly fits you !

Imagine finding elon musk in your comp

thabk you for finally talking abt this, its been such a big smurfing problem in low elo eu but since then ive gotten out. also your tips are actually so damn useful im always watching them ty for them

Thank you so much for making this video it makes this topic so much clearer

This issue is one of the biggest issue in the game so the godly person sena has spoken up to this❤

I have not spent any money on Valorant in the last 2 months, and I have started reducing my game time in Valorant as well. The smurfing issue has finally begun to break me. I put up with it for a long time, but I just cannot deal with it any more. Yes, I still play Valorant, and I am not just quitting, but I am slowly seeing my game time decrease and my will to buy skins is basically gone. As much as Riot might think things are fine business wise now, I am sure I am not the only person in this position, and this is probably their greatest risk. Most people are not going to stop entirely over night, but I can see a lot of people gradually slow on their game time with Valorant until they no longer play at all, or at least do not buy skins. At least that is what I am hoping happens

Thank you for bringing this up, I dunno how much smurfs or bots I’ve encountered in my ranked games but it seriously feels like I can’t rank up and I got downgraded to iron 2. Also something tells me if riot games keeps being who they are then they might end up like other game companies like blizzard, activision, and valve. It’s so stupid how in gaming companies there’s either a company that’s successful in profits but garbage in community and gameplay or there’s those companies that aren’t successful in sales but are thriving in keeping the game environment safe

Thank you for this video! I have brought up so many times that phone verification should be introduced for competitive play. If Riot is supposedly about comp integrity that is the first step. There are systems that can be used to sniff out IP based numbers to try and circumvent the number verification. The more deterrents in play for making it difficult to smurf in comp, the better it is.

another amazing sena video :)

If it keeps going this way, there will be no true irons left. All my low rank friends quit because they just weren't having fun getting annihilated by smurfs. What's worse is the kind of people who smurf are also toxic drive away new players.

It’s about time someone spoke out about this.

this problem is getting so out of hand and ive experienced these bots on my team in ranked and its very frustrating. i wish they would do something about it but i dont think they ever will ):

I used to run a non-profit esports lab and because our guys weren’t good the guest accounts would float in Iron 3 - Bronze 2. Every time we 5 stacked there was a 50/50 chance we would get a bit match. It was ridiculous. Now me an my friends who are Silver-Gold range can’t 5 stack because there’s always some insecure ass ASScendant or Immortal smurf on these 5 stacks and it’s unenjoyable. We are following the rules and queuing up as 5, but these assholes have nothing better to do.

yeah westjett touched on this topic too. i’m new to valorant and i like it so far, but i’m not looking forward to rank solely because of this

Preach 🙌

Boosting services is a thing too, played comp few months back then, our jett was dropping 40 silver lobby, then started promoting the service on the chat every round.

glad u spoke the truth ... i m so fcked up with smurfs that i get deranked every single day

Since i couldn't play due to school, my valorant has been hacked for 3 times, managed to recover it but this is such a huge problem. People should play regularly or they have the risk to lose their money and time due to this stupid issue

Love this video❤

nice new style

My experience has been kind of the opposite. There’s been multiple times were someone buys a high asc/low imm account in order to boost their duo, or to boost their imm friends high into the rankings. They get a much lower mmr account in order to make their games easier and be higher on the leaderboard

Thank you for this vid

Yup, my deathmatches pretty much had bots and it was so obvious lol

I do like that they added bot reporting,but I was in a 5 stack and ran into 5 bots, reported them and haven't heard anything from the report and it's been a week now.

great video

if something is going to pump up the player numbers they will allow it. for example, even if you get a one year ban, or a account lock until the year 2200, basically anything but cheating, you can simply make a new account and keep going.(what most people do is they'll have alt accounts at level 20+ ready at hand)

one day Rito's greed will be their cause of failure.

I wish i can show people the actual risks of going on to these third party websites that would definitely discourage people to buy accounts from those websites and if riot did a comprehensive video on these risk then that would kill those markets really fast.

178 ping accounts can also come from APAC servers, I played with some of my NA friends and I had around 160-200 ping.

im so happy someone finally uploaded a clip of the new jett nerf. Everyone's still uploading old jett clips before the nerf

Luckily I havent run into a bot but i am freinds with lower rated players (silver and below) who describe excactly what your talking about. Thankyou for speaking out about it.

Isn’t restricting players with number vertification for ranked but allowing them to vertify multiple times solve the problem ? And ban all accounts associated with the same number if one account gets involved into any problem (ex. cheating, or botting as mentioned in the video).

Players like myself will regrettably move onto CS2. Hopefully enough people will do the same and Riot will be forced to take action, but not likely

I don’t play ranked because I feel like it will cause my self worth to plummet and this just gave me another reason

me when sena says something: HOLY SHIT I LOVE SENA

Nice video sena

I used to get bots like this when I was in "Plastic" rank 3 years ago

Awhile back when I first started valorant around last year I was in comp and there was only 1 bot in my game and all he did was run around with a judge and was wondering what was going on at least now I know!

Im a casual player and today after hopping on a comp game there was a Reyna botting ( right clicking with classic constantly whilst afk at spawn ) sometimes you just need to learn not to care about the game so much and youll enjoy playing it.

this is so true man. like i play comp regularly i have been hard stuck for 9 months. im not entirely blaming smurfs but ever 2 or 3 games i get a smurf and it makes me so frustrated.Even if u report the smurf riot dont fo anything. I had a freind who was stealing other people account i didnt even know a i felt bad after the owner of the account came on it a was so lost. this could make people waste money buying skins just for it to be taken away by so horrible rat farming valorant accounts

I have an idea which seems to be working for me after implementing it. (7 wins in a row). Valorant ranking system punishes you for playing well! For example if you’re ascendant 2 for example and get a KD of 30-5 it will jump elo and match you with elo of immortal 3’s even if their physical rank shows plat (smurfs) they will be of immortal + elo as physical rank you see and behind the scenes elo are two different things hence why I will see a plat 1 hitting 40 kills in my ascendant lobbies sometimes. Best thing you can do at the moment is try not get a + KD ratio and win the game if you can. Unfortunately you get severely punished with matching either cheaters or super smurfs from super high elos if you get + KD or get MVP. This can be achieved by dropping less kills and getting 0-10 or 0-15 at the start for example. Then gradually playing well to your best all the while trying to maintain an even KD and not a positive one in important rounds or defence. If you don’t do this and keep blasting 30+ kills you will eventually be matched with smurfs or cheaters as they too are doing the same thing (mvp and 30+ bombs) Cause the opposing team will report you and you could end up being matched with cheaters too! Unfortunately this is the only work around cause the system is extremely unfair with the behind the scenes calculations (elo) compared to your actual physical rank that you see. You maybe matching a gold in diamond but that (gold / silver in previous act badge) is not that elo it is much higher. Conclusion. Drop kills and try win in a minus KD or even KD ratio. Do not! Try and get positive KD or match MVP. I have noticed that when you get match MVP the very next game your team mates will be amazing (like super smurfs) for one game then thats it its a downswing after that with matching vs smurfs and cheaters alike. Similarly if you keep losing you will eventually match super low elo in comparison (the now gold 3 will feel like iron 1 and the platinum that played like a immortal 3 a few games ago will now feel like a bronze as these are now true golds and true plats). Hope this helps. Also this coincides with the fact that at mid to higher levels such as Gold, plat and diamond there are gonna be loads of boosters. So if you go into them hitting 30 bombs you will be placed much higher elo wise then you will go on a losing streak. Its basically a mess and this is an idea to overcome it for the time being because playing well can land you in serious trouble elo wise compared to your physical rank and land you multiple losses in a row through smurfing and elo calibration which coincides with the smurfing that matches your elo with theirs even if their physical rank is lower 🤦‍♂️ which is the problem giving us the mess that we have above. By going even kd or slightly minus kd you make the booster do more of the work ( if you have one on your team. They usually wake up trust me its a smurf fest) thus frustrating them cause they want YOU to do it to get your elo up they will happily bottom frag and put away their ego as theyre boosting someone. I can’t stress it enough that the physical rank and elo behind the scenes are two separate things and you can never see your true rank especially with the current circumstances of smurfs and cheaters.

Just got an ad for valorant accounts before this video.

I agree!!

Valorant content creator: I ranked up to radiant only with pistols! *proseeds to buy a smurf account in the blackmarket*

Thank you for speaking up on this issue. I have tried and tried to work through the smurf issues. it is probably 1 in every 4 games you realistically encounter a smurf. It's not every match, but enough to be so annoying and deflates all the air out of your run. I switched over to CS until Riot can fix their stuff. I hope they do, but I doubt it.

A very simple solution would be to copy cs and make a few to get into an alternate lobby with only people who also pay the fee

i played against a immo smurf duo and that was the nail in the coffin for me im not gonna waste my time anymore

I feel like I get a smurf in every single match now, I am in bronze 3 / silver 1 recently, it sucks.

Literally few days ago i qued up into warm up escalation match with whole enemy team consist of literal bots with same name who got 1 kill with random roza ult and was only dying. I even have recording. Should i contact support?

Maybe if they made Connecting a Phone Number a Required Option in creating an account

I spoke with a riot dev in discord and he said youtubers that smurf count as second accounts not smurfs for some dumb reason

Im new but there is a thing that I just dont understand. Ive been playing against very high ranks such as plat, dia or even immo even tho im bronze. After a few months of playing ive climbed from i2 to b1 (And I think im not THAT bad. I play neon going with 25/10/10 sometimes even better) while playing against much higher ranks. I got 800 or higher score on tracker. When it happens to play against normal ranks theyre obvious smurfs, they even admit it. And this is something i dont remember when I used to play val for a few weeks in 2020. Is it only me or is it normal and I should quit cuz im too bad?

This is an informed opinion from studying this problem from another angle. The Smurfing is obvious from hi elo and content creation. Similar to how stream sniping is prevalent and visible for steamers. But for lo elo and non-streaming masses, there is a FAR bigger problem related to this. It is account farming, yes, but the demand is too big to be accounted for by those wanting to Smurf for content. No. The biggest majority of those customers are players sick of the toxic headwinds in lo elo preventing their escape, and so they buy their way out. This explains a few things: why the account farming teams (not all bots, but humans doing both Smurfing and Throwing on both sides of a match) are toxic to everyone, and why there are so many on the German and CA servers, or on any server at peak hours. This is a cottage industry taking the free accounts not just to lvl 20 for ranked play, but to higher ranks, with loot, to sell for much higher prices than an Iron lvl20. We’re talking $25 - $250 each. As the Smurfing content shows, it doesn’t take much for an experienced player to rank up (to sell), and it’s far more efficient for them to do this with the help of like-teams they coordinate with, to throw on the other side. 3-stacks with one lead and two lesser accounts can control one side, and another 3-stack makes the whole match pretty much fixed; super efficient, easy money. The only problem is for the leads to reuse their account, 3-stack together and throw to derank, and carry the next groups up (to sell). A well oiled machine. Thank for your videos, for illuminating bravely, and keep it up, for the community.

My boy sena

I can see only one person talking about this.. it's only sena...

You forget the big streamers would also have no content if smurfing was not allowed so riots is greedy which makes sense which mega company isnt it just breaks my heart to have bots and smurfs it ruins the game

in asia server ive never encountered a single bot, only smurf problem (they’re not that good anyways) and black market

Riot needs to AT LEAST make it so you can only create one account per computer, bc I quit the game and there was a lot of others factors to why I quit, but this was a big one, and I was an og player.

There should be community based servers and invitation only servers .

I love this game and I have been playing it for about 2.5 years, but I recently stopped due to the reasons you've mentioned in the video. Its just not fun anymore.

Idk but i never experienced this type of thing in my region or any website that sells this low elo ID's!! Im from Pacific region 😅!! I agree that people buy accounts but that one may be for skins or high rank accounts!! Today i got to know this thing existed 😀

For the algorithm. Has to be seen.

Im low elo player and yeah this is problem, like i dont know my enemy/teammates are smurfing? Like one tapping is smurfing? Even i cant see what is different good player and smurf im so confused, they look same for me in low elo...

it's definitely a problem, but i don't think restricting players to a single acc is the solution. a lot of people use alts and burners to help their mentality, and they still play intentionally (if not as well-focused) on alts. the problem is accounts with intentionally disproportionate ranks.

I remember playing with some bott named "Jett Bezos" on breeze. I was still silver back then My team started throwing bc we couldn't even ff, and obviously we couldn't remake bc they were still in the game The score became like 3-11. Enemy started throwing a bit too, pushing us when we were staying in spawn goofing off. Slowly though, we somehow ended the game in 14-12. My greatest comeback ever, even better than a regular 0-12 comeback Not sure if that account was terminated, hope it was

tbh riot can fix is so easily if u want to play rank you have to verify your number boom acc selling is gone

Riot, please listen to this man.

I queued up in my g1 and boy o boy we got enemy yuro silver1 who dropped 35/8 on split. Popping every head he sees and its not very fun as someone who wants to slowly make progress in my overall skills in valorant

I just realized, you sound like NileRed :0

Everyone talks about adding phone #s to stop the smurfing issue. I used to vuy accounts on siege which has the phone #. The ppl creating these accounts have phone # generators that work for this stuff. In all, adding a phone # means nothing for smurfing and botted accounts.

They must have rewarding rank system like league so people have some reason to play

luckily im in bronze and i havent experienced any bots yet. Only a bunch of iron-radiant smurfs 😢

i havent experienced smurfing or botting problems in valorant ranked tho

I’ve had way more smurfs in my game lately

Sena do you stream?

this happened to me and my friend yesterday we played unrated and got 2 bots as teamates and thay did evryting you said

I personally quit the game because of the smurfing problem. I quit back in Ep:6 act 3 as I was not able to get out of gold/plat due to the amount of smurfs/throwers. I would have a 1.1-1.2 kd with 29% hs accuracy average with a ACS of 249 and tracker score of 650+ which is supposed to mean i was better then the average. No matter what i did i could not climb. Almost all the games i played were out of my control and is honestly got me in a bad mindset/depressed. With guns such as vandle and sheriff i had over a 40% hs accuracy to. I would solo que and constantly play fill or would play duelist if i was feeling good that day but nothing i did mattered. I am honestly not going to come back to valorant unless they release a 3v3, 1v1 comp mode or make a phone number a requirement for comp. And those stats was when i was falling out of love with the game. Back when I was still in love with the game i was a 30%+ hs acc average and over a 700+ tracker score average yet still felt useless in my games as the system is broken. If you solo que you end up with smurfs/throwers often. If you 5 stack there is a high likely hood of getting placed with high rankers trying to boost a friend. Nothing i did seemed to matter and it caused me to quit the game and my hopes for a youtube channel based around the game. I know stats aren't everything but unless you got a 1.5kd+ you can't climb solo anymore unless you get lucky rng.

facts

Ok first things first I’m plat and for context of the rest of this no I’m not boosted. When I started playing ranked I got put in bronze 3 and then a few games later I got into a game where the entire enemy team were bots and I managed to get outa bronze from that because it’s happened 4 times in a row. I know they’re ere bots because every time this has happened to me is they would ff after 5 losses for them (5 wins for me) I aced every time and double ranked up. Bots are ruining the game

I dont have my phone number linked to my current account because I lost the account that had my phone number a year ago and I was about lvl 3 there and now I am lvl 35 and I have spent money on this account (about 40€) so I dont want them to make it mandatory to have a phone number to play ranked. I agree with everything said in this video tho

The video is well done, however in my opinion it does not clarify enough the possible conflict of interest, between skill-selling and accounts proliferation (smurf), if any.

It is sad to think Before it was more of how to make the best games for our players. And now it's just how can you make the most money off our players. People getting mad at OverWatch for the microtransaction But honestly all of the games are like this nowadays dont care about us just wants to get more money

W video

I play 1 game a day if lucky. If you look at my match history it has been crazy. I think out of the last 15 games there's been 5 with a smurf either on my team or on there's. Maych making sucks atm with every game being 13-4 maybe 5 one way or the other. Games been kinda shifty lately. But I'll be on tonight 😂

Bros throat collapses every time he says vAlOrant 💀

while mine is diff, saw enemies and teammates with high elo (Diamond - Ascendent) but they shoot like bronze player.

If there’s a 0.0001% chance that a smurf buys something from riot they won’t do anything about it

never tried it on the EU servers

What is the opposite of a smurf? I know some low elo players buy higher elo accounts because they think they should be there

how did ur alt account get stolen?

i think they should do something like steam a subscription im ready to pay 14$ to lose and win fairly on comp

Bro tbh, im not that good in Valorant (Gold 2) When i play Valorant i get around 15-19 RR for a Victory and around 26 RR for games where i dominate (like 37/5 Stats). I dont even get Bonus when i Match MVP'd i only get Bonus when i dominate. My Problem is, that i'm really inconsistant. That means that in one Round i go like 7/17 and the next round i go 45/10. When i play really poor in 2 Rounds and barely manage to win the game i get like 30 RR. But in the next Round i get a Smurf where me and my teammates have no chance to win the game. We lose 13-2 and is lose like 26-30 RR for that game. So the progress i made (even with playing poorly) is taken away from me, just because of an Smurf that goes 55/3 in my game. When i go into next game, i play against the worst players even existed and it feels unreal how bad they are and i feel pretty sorry for them because i take their fun and everything away because they are real Gold Players and they think i am smurfing even when i just play my game. I mean, why do i get flamed for "smurfing" just because i am (sometimes) better than my opponents even when im Hardstuck Gold and cant climb because of these Smurfs in my Game who steal so much RR from me that i cant climb? I know i need to practice until i get Diamond and above but why do i have to feel sorry just because i practiced so much to counter at least some of the smurfs?

I was playing with my bro and than suddenly a Turkish guy highjacked his account mid round. I even talked with him in Turkish and asked him how he got the account. He said that he bought it on some website. In the same time my bro switch his password and luckily got his account back. But that is crazy 😂

I dont think have a smurf account is necessarily a bad thing, but i do believe that botting accounts and selling them will destroy the game indefinitely

This was a rly good video, but I want to point out how ur radiant and casually said, “my immortal alt account was hacked”. I mean, isn’t that also just smurfing?

I'll smurf sometimes but these black market accounts are getting out of hand

What I don't understand is why people keep crying about the general content in Valorant. In csgo we have had the same content flow for 10 years and no one whines. So to the Smurf topic I agree of course and the video, just wanted to note that.

Is this NA only problem or everywhere?