The Truth About Smurfs In Rocket League 

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Smurfs can be annoying but the feeling of beating a smurf is unmatched to anything else in rocket leauge i mean im in champ1 and think the feeling of beating someone i know is most likely a smurf who is at least a gc is amazing

@@3ormorecharacterz a

We realize wayton

U forgot that smurf throw games to go down too

Even if they throw they are still helping two players and only hurting one.

I think you are absolutely correct, but now that begs the difficult question of the morality of smurfing. If you are getting whooped and then still given the win, does that not make going against a smurf a *net* neutral/positive?

​@@FreznosisI'd rather loose an even matched game than beeing given a win after beeing clapped around for 5 minutes

mined 60% so i stay in diamond in 1s so fun smurfing

So we can treat smurfs like minibosses that appear unexpectedly every once in a while. Interesting, seeing things like this almost makes it seem like they are beneficial for the average player 🤔

Literally my fav thing to do

Thats why you always downrank with another smurf mate. It´s unfair to throw someones game on purpose

In all my Plat2/3 games when I encounter a smurf, about 80% are against smurfs on the way up, 10% are with a smurf on my team who just hogs the ball for clips and the other 10% is an afk'er doing the minimum keypresses to not get kicked for being idle. I've not had a teammate actually smurfing it into our own net... yet

@@Knight0fTheSky 80% Is just incorrect and if it was 80% your tmm8s smurf percentage would also be higher

@@daynochez5779 try reading his comment again 💀

I remember once in a 2's match the smurf throwing on my team had to own goal because I was winning 2v1.

I apologize for the long post, but I feel like it's worth reading. I might be a minority here, but here it goes. That's not true for everyone. My wife and I for example. She plays on an account that she only ques with me. Whether it's on my main just to see if she's improved and can hang at my level OR it's my alt that I only play with her on. I don't solo que and throw games. Ever. That's just lame. I give it my all every game. We play consistently around high champ 1 to champ 2. I'm not that much higher... I'm low GC1 at my best, but consistently champ 3. I've even fallen to champ 1 on a bad night. Last night she absolutely finessed some champ 1s on the ground multiple times and hit a nasty aerial redirect. At the end of the night, we lost 5 games in a row together around champ 1 div 4. We won the next game, then we did play till we lose, and we lost that game, ending the night around c1 div 2 and her in mid d3. It's not because I threw. But we just sucked. The other teams played better than us. That's it. I don't play games in gold, plat, or diamond, where players are pretty much completely defenseless against me. That's boring. How am I supposed to get better myself and improve if the opponent I'm playing against can't even defend my attack? (Edit: I learned in a comment below that Brawlhalla has a system like this.) Honestly, I wouldn't need an alt if Psyonix would introduce "team based" match making. I play with player "x". Together, our rating is 1200 and we play against other teams in the same "team based" que. I play with player "y". Our team rating is 1400. We play against teams of the same rating in the same "team based" que. The only problem I see with this system is that que times would be increased. Can't find a match after x amount of time? Throw us in the public que at an appropriate rating. I would gladly wait. However, it still wouldn't stop bad actors from intentionally throwing games to be at a lower rating. But, at the end of the day I just want to play competitive games with my friends. Rebuttal 1: Why not just play casual with your friends? Casual sucks. People will leave after a demo or two. I'm a demo heavy player. People will up and afk for half the match. People will just leave for whatever reason. It's not fun, nor competitive. I want to play games where everyone on the pitch is giving it their all, no matter what until the game ends. You can't get that consistently in casual. Rebuttal 2: Just play ranked on your main with your lower ranked friends. How is that different from intentionally throwing? Is it fair that we get crushed every game cause my m8 can't hang? Then I solo queue again and absolutely shred everyone on my way back up? TLDR: I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't. Just because I want to play actual competitive games with my friends where everyone on the pitch is giving it their all. It's not fair I get labeled the asshole because people are so black and white on this. I don't "clip" on defenseless players. I don't intentionally throw games to boost people. I don't play at a rank that's significantly lower than my own. I play hard every game at an appropriate level me and my teammate can handle, where the games are balanced. I have to play against people better than me too. Yeah. It sucks when someone hits a clean double flip reset musty or whatever on me. But it's on me to get better and prevent it. I can't improve if I just blame them and get angry that I lost 10 mmr because they were better than me.

@@cauzt1cz playing an entire division of ranks lower than you absolutely ruins the game for everyone else in the lobby even if your friends are bad you being significantly better is huge. On top of you clearly have no idea how competitive games work since you cannot do team based matchmaking since it makes boosting insanely easy with it being a huge problem a long time ago of people being insanely high rank and then having their friends be on super low mmr to go against the "average" of very low players. Just play customs if you like playing with your friends so much and if they don't like customs it's because it's not fun to play against someone significantly better than them which you do every game when you hop on to dumpster worse players.

@@sonysdad4709 The games are even. What is so fucking hard to understand? I've been a competitive gamer at far higher levels than you I'm absolutely sure. Especially if you want to start bringing Quake 3 and Quake 4 in the mix where we didn't have these ranked systems. I'd get my ass clapped by pro level players daily for years, until I got good enough to hold my own and finally stand a chance or win. I've won money and prizes. Not enough for a liquipedia page, as I didn't have enough support to travel. But people in that arena fps scene still know who I am for the most part. I've had current pro's tell me how they were so excited that they beat me in a duel(Quake). Stop being a whiney little bitch and just get fucking good. How hard is that to understand? Constantly using others as an excuse. Maybe YOU shouldn't play competitive modes with your weak ass mentality. You're assuming I'm constantly "dumpstering" players when that's not the case AT ALL. I don't play completely defenseless players. You also assume people don't like playing against people significantly better. Which is also bullshit. There are plenty of people out there like me that do. If I have to play someone better than me, I give it my all and sometimes I perform better than I would if I were playing a lower/evenly ranked player. I don't blame the other person for being better than me like half of this weak ass community does. I simply desire to get better and improve. Just becauseYOU have a weak mentality don't assume everyone else does too. Brawlhalla gets their ranked matchmaking right. Team based competitive 2v2 with no rewards. Totally fine with that. Play solo 2v2 or 1v1 to get your rewards. Also great. You clearly don't have a shred of competitive mentality so kindly go fuck yourself. You're a casual that doesn't belong in ranked. Talk to me when you can stop crying about better players. Especially the ones that aren't so low ranked on their alts that they're "dumpstering" other players as you ignorantly assume.

​@@cauzt1cz If your friends suck compared to you, then take It to the chin, thats the only fair thing to do. You lose until you get to an average ELO where you're able to carry them and they are able to contribute some value to the team. Damned if you do damned if you dont? Not quite, you're just being selfish and ruining other players experiences to not lose your own ELO, but you make other players lose theirs unfairly. Your friends cant tango with your level? They gotta get good, or you gotta get worse (by de-ranking by getting pulled down by them), simple as that

The stats are way worse than that. You are a lot more likely to meet a team of 2 who are teamed up beforehand where one is a smurf. The stray solo smurf is probably a lot less common.

I know a glitch that gives you unlimited Smurf profiles on your main account 😎

Exactly the comment I was looking for. In order for a smurf account to continue being utilized as a smurf account the win rate has to be around 50% at most. Otherwise the Smurf would keep climbing to their normal rank which means they can no longer boost their teammate on that account.

Yeah, exactly. I've won against smurfs before where they're clearly higher ranked than me, but playing with someone who is clearly boosted, so it works out as even. Still shit to play against, and should still be banned

It’s not unfair until that gold player starts solo queuing. Then some unfortunate player gets teamed up with a gold in a champ lobby.

Yep, just had one in tournament earlier (Diamond tournament). Was playing with a friend and he readied up but was afk then.. we were winning 2v3 against the other team and then the guy started playing against us and ended up losing 5-4. He clearly wanted to rank down for some reason -_-

My alt account that is currently at c3 (but I've dropped to diamond 1 a couple times in order to carry friends) has a win percentage of 63%. Ive had to throw a lot but I tend to go up and down multiple ranks.

the other day i had 4 almost in a row that went like this. obvious smurf, i was losing, other team ffs while winning...

That’s actually surprising because that has almost never happened to me. Also, if they were really trying to derank wouldn’t they try to reduce the amount of goals scored and ff as soon as possible? Idk I feel like even if that does happen, it wouldn’t nearly outweigh the amount of games where smurfs are actually trying to win 🤷‍♂️

​@@WaytonPilkinI don't think so. You're assuming smurfs are trying to derank in the most optimal way, but you're forgetting the most fundamental part. Smurfs just want to clap on lower skilled players. So from their perspective they are enjoying their time hitting clips or whatever having their fun and ff'ing to stay in the rank

Ya I can't remember the last time this has happened to me

@@benjaboi9817not necessarily. Most smurfs just want a fair way to play with their lower leveled friends. I'd say the majority don't just hop on a smurf while solo queuing and beating on plats for fun

I’m definitely guilty of smurfing once or twice in the past. Generally its when two of my friends that aren’t good at the game want to play 3s. Did this the other day and lost a 3s game in gold against a top 100 1s player on his smurf and it ended up being fun as hell lol. Only questionable part is my man was solo queueing at 2 am on a sunday in gold.

My luck I get both Smurfs other team and end up leaving.

always report the other smurf if you lose lmao

@@connordupre6616 now that's funny 😁

@@1chunkabunk I don’t get this, if you want to play with your friends why not just play casual? You carrying them kinda defeats the whole purpose of their rank no?

Almost impossible unless they ask for your id

Just don't be bad

​@@devin6437 how many times do you need to drop a baby on its head until they say things like you? 20? 30? Asking for a friend.

@@captain_malaria You have a child. Maybe you can test that out and let us know

​@@captain_malariahe can't count that high

I've been calling for this for a long time

Great idea.

how do you do this i need this

Don't know why but in almost every game, no one does that. I remember even LOL had that issue, the duo system was notorious, everyone was against that but the devs never adressed it. Not only did it screw up the matchmaking and MMR gain but it either gave you a huge disadvantage or the game was already won for you. I think it's some corporate bs explanation for "inclusivity", they want to appease everyone who wants to play, either with buddies or solo.

This already was a thing back in the day. They got rid of it because the lobbies were empty and the queue times were getting insane.

They made it worse by making this game Free 2 Play and people are FINALLY talking about it.

@@SloRush It's been talked about ever since they *announced* f2p, it's not just now being talked about.

At the end of the day, there's not really anything actually bad about smurfs. You get practice against a much higher opponent, which in return can give you a big advantage. After playing a smurf, surely you can queue in to your next ranked match and dominate, since they're on a much lower level than what you just played. Going against harder opponents is only a good thing, imo. The only downside is if you're on that smurfs team (if they're playing 2's or 3's) and they lose on purpose, so they can maintain a low rank.. but having a smurf as an opponent isn't bad.

@@hhaste it ruins the composition of the ranks. People who belong in Plat shouldn't be in GC and if they solo que, it's an automatic L for their teammate.

@@hhaste wrong, there’s nothing positive about playing against Smurfs.

this^

Bro this is so true

​​@@DanniDerpy I smurf because my main account was banned for "abusive language" so now I abuse worse players completely dominating them for four minutes and then forfeits. Thanks Psyonix, now I'm a blue boy and it's pretty fun.

@@icebox1954 I hope you are joking. Thats pretty fucked up that you would decide to ruin the gameplay for new or inexperienced players just for your amusement. Thats cyberbullying.

@@nitroxylictv Then call the cyber police and report the cyber crime haha. I won't actually derank just to play worse players as that's no fun. I'll just dominate them while getting to my actual rank.

Same in plat!

literally. Other people have pointed that out and Wayton expressed doubt, but you won't believe how many people airdribble, flipreset and doubletap on you for 4 and a half minutes while their friend is playing the role of a perma goalie or constantly whiff, just to end up forfeiting with 30 seconds left when they're beating you 10-1. They're still playing together with their friend, having fun, while you're excluded from it. The winstat not mattering is bs. Would you rather get beaten up by a smurf for 4 and a half minutes and still win, or would you rather play a fair game and maybe lose or maybe win. I think the choice is obvious. I don't wanna get boosted through smurfs throwing, winning isn't the end goal here. I want to have fun improving at the game that I love playing.

You’re 100% right, there’s so many Smurfs around that even the Smurfs play against even better Smurfs. It’s almost like everyone including the Smurfs will end up 1 rank or divisions lower cause of Smurfing.

@@theone3337 Simplifying, that's the case in around 9-10% of the games on the researched level

@@JimmyHey Yeah, for what it's worth this is what I came up with. If 1/3 of my matches are smurfs and they win 50% of the time, I'm losing 1/6 of my games just from smurfs alone. That's not ineffectual. If I converted 1/6 of my losses to wins my winrate would be 62% instead of 54%. Meaning, as matchmaking does it's thing, I would level out higher than where I am right now (not sure where exactly, but plateauing at 62% doesn't seem normal, so no one can argue that I'd still be where I'm at (D2 average).

When. I Smurf and I hit another Smurf team ITS GAME ON BROTHA!!!

Honestly I mean personally I never thought Smurf’s were that big a deal because of throwing to lower me but it really does make an already repetitive game into a game of repetitive smurf matches. Not fun

It almost make me give up in the early game session...Who the hell play air-dribble in plat rank while keep thinking if that player are hacking because I dont know before people can do air dribbling.

@@SoooNumb I’m not saying smurfing is good, but try to learn defending against it by either pre-jumping while saving your flip or doing the easier version of challenging from the backboard. It’s actually a good opportunity to improve your defence

​@@vignotum132 exactly

@@vignotum132 they’ll learn in time and when they need to learn it. No need to learning those things early cause of Smurfs when there’s something more important for their rank to learn cause there is always something to learn.

There really weren’t smurfs back then

Unless you had a console disk you would have to pay every time

@@coleradtke3603 yeah, that was my point. There were smurfs occasionally, but being ftp made the prevalence much higher I think.

even when it wasnt f2p i had like 4-5 smurf steam accs, and ppl i knew still hella smurfed back then

@@wavylol1 You were the exception, not the rule. Now smurfing is the rule, that's the problem.

right, the mental impact of facing a smurph lasts longer than a match and makes you so suspicious of others, it's more than a few win or losses.

That's actually sounds like an amazing idea. Having a party mmr vs a solo queue mmr would drastically effect rocket league for the better. It could also open the idea for club mmr (since most parties are mostly club members)

I think johnyboi had a similar idea. It sounds good. Even though it doesn't affect me. I don't have friends to play with 😢

Okay this is the first good idea I've heard. As a GC2 playing in Champ 3 with my plat friend, I haven't thought smurfing is bad because there is no way I'm playing with my plat friend in GC2, but this may be the best work around. Then I could play with him on my main

but Brawlhalla also has individual player ELOs for 2v2.

there’s a lot of things I could say about bh ranked system but while this could be annoying I guess it’s for the better I only got to gold in BH though and only had like 150 hours, 99% of it played casually with friends so it wasn’t really a pain compared to being d3 in rl

that's the 1's grind for you. Wow, I'm doing great. Here comes a GC2 wanting to feel like Zen to shit on me

@@dr.babies5750 my favorite excuse from them is "I just want to free style"... okay... I always counter with "Go freestyle at your rank than. Why do you have to try to ruin my gameplay for clips? That doesn't seem very fair to me."

​@@fastmadcowthen they pull: "stop whining bro" -idiot

get better and you wont have that problem anymore

most inteligent rl player^

get better, thats all

@@sire5689 allow me to rephrase your comment- "spend a 1000 hours in freeplay and you wont have that problem anymore..." Mentally stable people will just quit after their 10th smurf game ( takes around 15 matches ) and uninstall the game; -Which is the reason of RL having almost no new players AT ALL - the new players in the statistics are just actual smurfs...

smurfs in my champ games wah wah brother, if you're champ then you're not getting smurfed on, you just don't belong in champ

Agree 100%

💯 I’ll start playing with a good attitude telling myself just do your best and the rank doesn’t matter. Next thing you know I’m fuming not cause of losing, but the Smurfs. I can spot a Smurf so easily. It usually starts with him trying to lay low on defense making crazy saves keeping the score very close or tied then making the game winning goal. I know everyone says Smurfs ff on purpose but those are freestylers in casual. I’m talking about the Smurfs carrying their friends to season rewards.

Absolutely a problem at the lower levels. When you see a silver aerial a double-tap, you know somebody's blue on the outside.

Just recently got from plat to diamond and it feels like the amount of smurfs I encountered doubled. They're airdribbling, doubletapping even flip resetting and generally playing quicker, faster and way more optimized than everyone else on the field to the point it's painfully obvious and you can't get away from them because they're literally in every third game. It's so frustrating. I frankly don't care for the excuses that they make up for smurfing, they're interfering and robbing other people of their enjoyment with the game. It's cool that they want to play with their friends, but why do I have to be the one to suffer because of that? Take their friends to THEIR own higher rank and see how much fun THEY have.

​@@JimmyHey The only argument they have is "get good". 🙄

Everyone says it’s a problem but provide no solution

@@itslogikz3828 The proposed requiring a player to be level 10 to even be part of a party in competitive would help. I would argue that players should be consigned to casual even longer (20? 30?) as it would get rid of the worst unranked players in competitive.

It really is... One night queueing doubles with my cousin, we hit smurfs in the first 5 matches we played. Basic cars, getting 30+ MMR, and pulling off shit you just don't see in high plat and low diamond... All obvious signs of smurfing. It 's at the point for me the first signs of smurfing I see, I just quit right the and there. I am lucky if I play 1-2 nights a week now... and I used to play this each and every day at one point. It is so damn exhausting knowing you can't progress becasue it seems like more often than not you're going to hit a smurf, and when you do, your whole night is thrown out the window because it happens so often that it just leaves you feeling miserable and not wanting to play. (and if you do decide to keep playing, you start playing worse because it's just taken the wind out of your sails...)

Im in diamond 1 in 2v2s and I have seen a lot of smurfs there in past few months. It feels like in every third game is smurf and sometimes in the opponent team is two smurfs, that then give no chance for me and my teamate to win, when they keep making thoese air dribble goals.

I feel like diamond 1 in 2v2s is the most common smurf rank, when they come ruin it for the players who are practing air dribling in diamond 1. In 3v3s its like one in 30 games smurf, when typically most ball chase, but sometimes seen opponent team full of smurfs.

@@Kirkyeehee If you que in mid-day to Rocket League. There is not much any smurfs, when they dont yet play, but late in evening in 2v2 diamond 1 it feels like every third game there is smurf in opponent team.

I really dont get the people that said they see a smurf every 15 or 10 games. For me its like every 2nd or 3rd game, which actually matches the statistic Wayton showed. A smurf doesnt have to do insane mechanics. You can already spot them buy consistent clears that are stronger than you expect or faster recoveries than you used to and overall consistency (obviously depends on your rank, Im talking from a C2s perspective)

It was for hackers in Tarkov. Finding out that over 70% of players in a Tarkov match can be hackers made me quit all together. Every sus interaction I've had usually leading to my death become so much clearer that I had enough and uninstalled the game. I wont go back till it's fixed. For Rocket league though I'm at the rank where smurfs start to dwindle out. For instance I would say maybe 1-10 games is a smurf at my rank. C2-C3. If they have a 50% win rate than statistically It doesn't actually effect whether or not I rank up. Is it still annoying? Hell yes because it's so fucking obvious it's a smurf (Even when called out they lie about it). But does it effect my rank over the entire season if I play say 1000 games... no not at all because less than 100 of those games will have smurfs.

Love your tutorials man!

Mostly only possible if the smurf is only like 2 ranks above you and or his mate is to bad for the current rank. If you have bad luck you and you mate can peak but still lose because the enemys worst is still obove your peak performance. (Only applies like below gc2-3)

Well, a Smurf has to keep the 50% loss ratio to stay at that rank so in my games the Smurfs decide when to win and when to lose.

And you're still in oce ? I think you have your fair share of smurf

I particularly love when they hang on to a 1-goal lead and just burn the clock, but then your team ties it up last second and beats them in overtime. You can practically feel their mald through the monitor as they insta-quit the lobby.

People have mentioned this in other comments but you worded it much more concisely

But what about the ones that don't intentionally throw games? I fall into this category. I have specific accounts that I play with specific people on. If they solo que and lose the rank, tough shit. I'm playing on the account I've got dedicated to them no matter what the mmr is. It's not like my friends are silver- low diamond either. They're totally capable of solo queing champ 1-2 games. Which is where we typically play at together. Sometimes champ 3. Everyone has bad streaks sometimes and even I can fall down to high champ 1 on my own on a really bad night.

it's simpler than that - smurfs throw games on purpose to maintain a low rank. And the ones who don't will quickly leave the low ranks and therefore not be part of the dataset anymore

i feel like smurfs are gonna be found more in higher champ lobbies to try and carry friends to GC

@@greypls. They play at all sorts of levels - did you not just see the video that showed that 1/6th of D3-C1 2s games contain a smurf?

exactly. If 50% of people have a smurph account, and they did their 10 placement matches, they've each f*cked up 10 lower ranked matches each. that's thousands of matches. then they need to play a few more games to reach C1 and again, have f*cked up a few more matches. the worst part is, it's better overall for the lower ranked players if they trash the 10 matches, so they can rank up faster and leave the lower ranks alone. if they play with a friend, they still sometimes make impossible plays for the level and it just makes the whole match annoying, and it doesn't matter if you win or not.

​@@evilduck5691 1/3*

Agreed, Mates trying to freestyle in 2s and then rage quitting because they don't get the ball causing a 1V2 is just not okay.

The best is when they openly admit to smurfing and still whine and complain about their teammates. Like, motherfucker, instead of telling me to get to 1700, why don’t you just go back on your main account?

Smurfs aren’t always obvious, especially at the higher ranks. Just because you don’t see them, doesn’t mean that they aren’t there.

i feel the pain there, ive played tournaments against people with ssl tittles, im diamond btw

I personally never play them because I think their titles mean nothing and are a joke, but the few times I have actually played them are when smurfing so you probably are correct. Tournaments aren't a real representation of rank at all, it's much lower, like when I won a gc 1-2ish tournament on my smurf account, the lobbies felt no better than c3 the entire way through. SSL tournaments are no higher than gc2-3 players. Seeing a tournament winning ssl is nothing like a real ssl, or they would use the real ssl title. tldr, if you see a season xx ssl tournament winner in your lobby, don't be scared or anything, they are just coping for not actually getting ssl.

@@metaldiabolos86 A lot of people buy their SSL titles. Websites sell boosting where SSL's add you to their team and proceed to carry you in an SSL tournament. Those could be diamond players who paid for the SSL tourny win boost.

@@matKilla9801 Wow that is wild

deeply dissapointed, not only does it only address the most basic definition of a smurf, but you failed to even recognize their true impact.

I've found most smurfs hang out between plat 3 - Champ 1 although some are down even as far as Silver but D3/C1 is about the point where you start to not see them anymore (speaking as a current C1)

@@ZUnknownFox I'm GC2 and still over 20% of my games have a smurf

"win 4 lose 6, win 3 lose 2, win 8 lose 7" that just means you're not ready to rank up mate. My advice is take some time off ranked and train some of the basic mechanics, then you'll win a bunch a matches in a row and fly out of that rank ;)

@@NitraZone I am also gc2 and almost never encounter a smurf, you must have a different definition of smurf. Previous gc 3s or the occasional sll player sure, but normally on their main account and just haven't ranked up yet or are a little washed up after not playing a while. Most the games are definitely winnable, although I haven't played much in the past 2 seasons or so. So maybe things changed, I was hardstuck gc 2 for like 2 years peaking gc 3 and never had a problem with smurfs for that entire period of time

@@ragegaze3482 I see smurfs all the time, people that are gc1 unranked with no banner, default car, and partied with the other person. It's usually a gc3 or SSL trying to boost their friend to a higher rank. Granted its not as common as when I was lower ranked, but I still see it often.

This is very true, it's also just more fun that way to some extent. Playing with or against better players than you will always improve you to some extent. But it should only be 1 whole rank above you. It's hard to learn anything from an SSL as a diamond for instance, you just can't keep up with how they think about the match, but a C3 or Gc1 can.

I have an argument with one of my teammates every few weeks about this exactly. It's really hard to communicate this problem, to a non-programmer it seems like you should be able to apply the foul-language filters to every text input in the game easily. That would absolutely be the case if the game were built right to begin with, but it's closed source so we don't know. What we can observe is that changes to very small things come slowly, and the game is a money fountain for the publishers, that are understandably pretty anxious to disturb any part of it.

I wholeheartedly agree, I've been playing games for many many years where time and time again I hear complaints from a non-programmer minded individual about what sound like simple problems to fix but to us can be an incredibly complex set of solutions and google searches to find some way to improve or fix said problem. It's even harder to explain to the individual about what challenges developers would have to go through to fix the problem they had been complaining about.

Part of the issue about what you said that they're "lesser smurfs" playing with their pleb friends is that the stats we're looking at deal with D3-C1, which would need at LEAST a C3 or above to carry. I feel like at that point, with 100s or 1000s of hours in the game, a smurfing rate of 30% is absolutely unacceptable. I'm C3, so presumably I go against slightly less, but at this point in the game I can understand how frustrating hopping on to be absolutely smashed by some GC is. It's just not something someone trying to improve should experience. The other real issue here is tournaments. It's very hard to win a tournament fairly, because not only do you have to win, you have to beat the nearly overwhelming odds that you'll go against some GC.

Nah, Smurfing to play with lower ranked friends is a douchebag move used to excuse boosting. They can play on their main account with their low ranked friends if they queue casual matches. There is no legitimate reason for why they’d need to smurf instead of just playing casual.

@@matKilla9801 outside the fact a lot of them hate casual and think it's easier to play at a lower rank where no one can interrupt their ceiling flip reset musty double

@@ZUnknownFox This my guy. That and I also think the hidden MMR of casual has killed those modes as well.

@@ongon6813 no hidden mmr in casual makes it literally unplayable, It's boring to face garbage players, why would I ever play casual instead of ranked if I'm going to be put up against random opponents who 99% of the time are going to be garbage and make me fall asleep facing. The only reason to play casual nowadays is actually if you get high casual mmr, then you can atleast get good matches.

handing out 20 mmr per tournament match win is also stupid.

It's so obvious since so many people have SSL tourney winner titles in C3

@@crit7514 I've played with people with this tag and usually they are so bad I wouldn't even consider them C1. But who knows maybe they are throwing to drop mmr?

Yes! If someone hits a flip reset on me, doesn't automatically mean it's a smurf. Maybe he went for that 15 times that day and this is the one he finally hit. But if he beats me to every ball and is always in the right spot, that's 99% a smurf.

Bro I complained about this constantly Posted proof about it on reddit got banned for it for "witch hunting" It kept happening so I just Uninstalled

damn, why on earth did Psyonix restrict matchmaking if you had Family Share? that doesn't make sense at all lol glad they got rid of it

@@manu201701 Because smurfs heavily abused it.

@@HoraryHellfire hm, makes sense

I feel the same way, which is why I stopped taking ranked 1s any seriously. Around a third of the games were completely out of my control. I was completely at the smurf's mercy. If they decided to mess around, I could get my win. If they decided to actually try, I had 0 chance because of the massive skill gap.

Same. I also started after F2P and even now looking back at some of my oldest replays I encountered a smurf in the first 6 matches I ever played

I am making a data list similar to what the person in this video posed in their D1-C3 ranks for 3v3 in my old C2 rank. While my criteria are less strict I also use multiple factors, like rank at very first rank season. How many seasons they have been ranked and wins. Most other stats other than hours (which RLTracker does not show) are not reliable enough to use. While I have ranked out of the C2 range and into GC1. Back in C2 with my way of calculating smurfs, it came to about 20% where almost 100% smurfs with another ~10% on top of that being possible smurfs and around 75%+ of games having someone who was almost 100% smurfing. Cause when you think about it. With 5 other players in 3v3, if each one has about a 20% chance of being a smurf. The smurf % per game will be pretty high.

@@ongon6813 smurfs in 3s will be a lot less common though, since people generally like 2s more. And smurfing in 3s is not satisfying at all, I am a smurf myself and I almost never touch 3s on any accounts I make. Once you get into like the champ ranks, you can't even do anything crazy anymore and have to actually try to win since 1 player has little impact you end up just playing defense like the entire game to guarantee a win, which is boring. While in 2s you can just mess around all the way into the gc ranks. And while smurfing myself I don't think 75% is very accurate at all. Obviously every game I am in has a smurf cus i'm in it, but I don't see that many opponents who make me suspicious, or maybe they are smurfing just from a lower peak where it doesn't bother me.

💯💯💯 I’ll spot a Smurf super fast, even when they’re trying to remain low key. They usually play very solid defense and make crazy saves, letting their teammates win the game on offense but will takeover the second half of the game if the game is tied or they’re losing.

i also assume d3. hard enough to get to champ as it is, the psychological effect of then getting shitted on by the low grand champs has to be enough to drive anyone to smurf back down and get their nut off

The thing is, most of the Smurfs you see down there probably aren’t even Smurfs. Just c3s or c2s on an L streak

@@deat-mq5xi Maybe, thats something i consider as well. My peak is c1 in 2s but i see all sorts of bull in d3 c1 that i cant always call someone a smurf for popping off

@@deat-mq5xi It's more of if the one guy has 100 points and his mate has 1000 that I'm like ugh

All of plat. I was d1 for 2 seasons and this season I fell back into plat and literally every game i play is harder than being in diamond. At least 100% of the games I've played in 2s have a smurf, I'm working my way down plat further than I have in 5 seasons, and I know I've improved immensely since last time I was here, and for the first time ever both my 3s and hoops ranks are better than my 2s. Maybe it's my 14000 matches played, I don't know, but it always puts me against a team that just absolutely slaughters me and my random teammate who is even decent for this low rank. And the couple games I wasn't against a smurf there was still one in the game... me... an unintentional smurf

They definitely have high impact, those stats are misleading because most smurfs in that range are only a rank above or of equal rank and just got there again with the inflated mmr of a new account so they get stuck. I personally would get accounts through to gc with a 95%+ winrate easily, so if you face an actual good smurf, they have enough impact to almost gurantee you lose.

lol I don't see many smurfs in my games... so my teamates get all the blame xD

Exactly what I was thinking. The idea that smurfs could throw their games didn’t even cross my mind because I’ve practically never played against throwing smurfs 😅

@WaytonPilkin throwing would be the ultimate PR move for them right now. We would all love smurfs! (Unless they are on our team ofcourse 😬)

@@Rocket_Sledge i mean, some smurf play low ranked, then decide they want to go higher or lower and so then either win or ff instantly to derank.

Some might do it just for fun, there are people that like ruining other games, but it is not as common, however creating new account everytime you get higher mmr would be pointless.

Speaking personally as someone who's put several thousand hours into the game since launch and is high champ, I have a smurf account that I have used to play with my friends that aren't as into it as me. I'm not always sure how I feel about it, BUT overall as someone who dislikes playing against smurfs my way of justifying it has been that I won't let myself be the reason we win or lose. I'll play doubles with a lower-skilled friend, but do my best to restrict myself to what feels like average skill level for the lobby - if it's an actual low skill lobby then I will not go for aerials and will not use air roll, things like that, and maybe in some cases will end up "throwing" games by not trying my best. Overall the idea is that if my friend would've solo queued they should get about the same winrate as when queueing with me, and it makes for a fun challenge in its own way, while helping me feel a bit better about doing something that is in a moral grey area

100% agree, but I think that only applies if the gap isn't insurmountable. Like maybe the smurf has a 10-20% chance to lose, if the smurf has a 100% chance to win, the other guy normally doesn't even get to play the game, but if there's some competition there's things to learn.

That depends on how much higher the smurf is. If you're seeing a GC in silver, you won't learn a single thing. It's as if a grown man fought a toddler in a boxing ring. This isn't just hyperbole for the sake of an argument, I was in silver when I first started out with RL and had the exact thing happen to me more than once.

It actually could be a thing, getting coaching from someone with a higher skill, who also could give some extra confidence because better in defence could make your progress significantly faster... if you are sittin on a smurf account you probably dont care about winning or loosing so much either which could explain the low win rate of smurfs.

​@@korkoo1 I can tell you, personally when I make a smurf account, I enjoy keeping possession of the ball from any bronze-plat player and then intentionally losing the game. I can confirm you have seen this as I have done it several times and it might have been me you saw doing this. However, just know it's not for nothing. I don't smurf for myself, I do it for others to try and help bring them up.

You can watch Rocket Leauge video's on ytube and learn about air dribbles, flip resets and ceiling pinches.

Completely agree.

Makes sense

I get this but if somebody cant even touch the ball, its as bad at what some freestylers for to hit clips.

@TheOneAlethian I like this suggestion.

That's just straigh BS. If you want to practice your fancy mechanics, go into freeplay. Or better yet, make a bot match with Pro-lvl bots and try to 'practice'. Don't ruin my games because you just want to 'practice'. Also, even a garbage gold player like me can easily challenge those 'fancy' air plays by just flying up and 50'ing the ball before you can start doing whatever. Smurfs should be BANNED. You should have one account, that's it.

That's why they throw games to get settled into a lower rank first.

did you get GC?

Being called a Smurf at my normal level a few times is the highest compliment I can get on RL 👍

The data gathered in the survey had nothing to do with opinions, it was people with low amounts of hours at high ranks. As described, a normal D3/C1 will typically have over 1000 hours, and the data said that more than 1/3 of games had an account with less than 200 hours. Not to say that there aren't many "false positives" as well, as you are describing, but that likely comes from people seeing smurfs so GD often. If you think about it a bit, it is actually much more common to have a smurf in their game than someone who has very good mechanics for their rank. For someone to comment on it, you are probably around top 5% mechanics player for your rank, making you appear in only ~15% of games everyone else sees. It is less than half as likely to see someone like you than a smurf

Even so you are giving 2 players a free win and only hurting one.

@@Angel-cd9bq just to clarify im against this action

I'm aware 🤣

​@@Angel-cd9bq yes that's but this shouldn't happen. You deont play ranked to either W/L a fair game or roll a dice if your smurf opponents let you win or not.

i run into a smurf every 10 - 20 matches. and more times the smurf is on the opposing team.. which is why i still think action is needed to make it a little harder for smurfs.

When I went from Switch to PC I was stuck in d3, though on PC i managed to get to c1, but OMG the games up until then were... special. I lost a silver match, cause I didn't want to smurf hard on the opponents and mostly let my mates do the job, though when it got tough I tried to help out a bit, but this one mate would always bump me away from a good shot or a save totally panicing and started raging in chat blaming me and the other guy for the loss, lmao. Also seeing people going at each others throat while both are playing horrible will never not be funny.

if one thing is consistent, your teammates will always blame you for the loss, recently dropped from GC2 to C3 and was still getting shit talked by teammates even though I was dropping 800 points 💀💀

I agree lol, people are delusional at low ranks, I have been a gc2 player for years, and I have had people try to shit talk me in champ lobbies which I normally find hilarious since literally everything they do is wrong in my eyes. I legit had a time where I was on a brand new account in like c2-c3 on the official discord server and the random I partied up with, without telling them I'm a smurf starting flaming me when we were losing after the game. Even though during the game I was in shock at how bad they were playing and was going to tell them it's np since it's not my main account anyway, but the audacity to put it on me shocked me. But in my own games I don't see smurfs either so maybe you are right...

@@ragegaze3482 I’m weak hearing both you’re experiences do lead me to believe you’re right because that happens in my games but it would be true not to talk as a Smurf because people just get mad when you tell them how to play

This happened often in Flake's road to SSL 2v2 without mechanics series. It was funny watching low ranked players complaining about how an elite/pro level 1v1 player was playing the game. I get the same in lots of my games, at any rank. From Silver 3-Diamond 2. Because my rank sometimes shifts a lot of I get stuck at a lower or higher rank for a time. I find the teammates at the higher lobbies (Plat & Diamond) more insulting and aggressive than the lower lobbies though. Even when we edge out a win. They insult me because I have crap mechanics, accuracy and am slow.

That's not even close to true, a GC walks all over 2 diamond players by themselves

While I completely agree, it’s also important to note that before the day is over there are many players that get to experience losing to a Smurf. But that is a really good point 👍🏼

@@Shawn_Steward regardless of what the true ranks balance out to be. I believe the point he was making was the Smurf and the boosted player end up finding an equilibrium where they can no longer continue winning consistently until the boosted player improves himself.