In online gaming, a smurf is an experienced player who uses a new account to deceive other players into thinking he’s a noob (newbie). The purpose is usually to play against less skilled opponents who will under-estimate the ‘smurf’. The expected result is that the smurf will pwn (dominate) his opponents and humiliate them further as they have been now beaten by an apparent noob.
lol yup that’s a strategy of mine. My inebriated alters are almost always my regular name or username just with the letter J as the first letter.
Once in high cool I was assigned a group with my buddies John, Justin, and James. We came up with the idea to be the J team so from then on in that class I signed all my papers as my J name and went by it as well.
Not defending smurfing for egotistical reasons as explained in this thread, but I can think of one legitimate reason. A friend of mine is a prodigy in Rocket League and literally couldn’t queue with myself and our friends due to his rank. He has a Smurf account just to play with us
This is what unranked modes are for, generally, and when there is no equivalent unranked mode that’s definitely a failure of the game. Csgo had that issue for a looooooooong time as well.
There are also other legitimate reasons. The drunk account can be one (since even unranked modes often use skill based matchmaking), or the actual practice one (I feel for my alternate universe teammates in which I didn’t use a smurf to learn how to play more than one char in league).
Bu5 I do feel like the negative impact from people using smurfs for ego boost or to be an asshole in some way far outweighs the upsides, sadly.
I agree, 99.9% of the way. My brother makes a smurf now and again to play competitive marvel rivals with those of us that don’t play but would still like to have a 2-set match instead of a single side push.
Noncompetitive is locked to single push and so you don’t have a chance to play as both attacker and defender, so it doesn’t really feel like a full match.
I don’t really care much, some in the group do. He’s not ridiculously good, just a few ticks higher than people who don’t play competitive unless the whole group is in
Depends: if you want to experiment new ideas into established meta without losing rank on a main account.
In the FGC, tournaments are won by new meta findings all the time. Adapting to them is what makes the tourneys fun.
You can do that shit in unranked. There is no need to practice in ranked modes. Even a pick-up-game with other competitive players can be done in an unranked mode.
Again it depends. Some games don’t let you do these experiments on unranked modes. Some don’t even have unranked modes at all.
I agree with you that smurfing for the sadism & egotistical sakes is not fun at all. But in fighting games even alternative modes than arcade modes are nonexistent. See the scientific&exploration part of this too.
What games with ranked modes don’t have any kind of unranked modes? What games have unranked modes of play that actually play differently than ranked while also not being a non-standard mode where whatever you’re experimenting with isn’t possible outside of ranked play?
Even fighting games generally have an actual practice mode against the AI and you’re not limited in what moves you can do there. At least, good modern ones do. But I don’t think there’s a big competitive scene for old garbage like Pit Fighter.
Arcade cabinet games.
Arcade cabinet games.
Non alternative mode developed games.
A few non sorted lists: Fate Stay Games, all arcade FGs, Gundam games, 3D mobile suit action shooters, DS fighting games, nearly all SNK fighters, DarkStalkers, Street Fighter 1-4, anything on Nexica×Live, etc…
Yeah, I agree this is reasonable. But there’s a difference between creating an alt account for experimentation vs throwing games to get to or to maintain a lower rank. My feeling is that “smurf” typically implies the latter.
I would hate to be accused of smurfing when I am experimenting with an character I am least familiar with, or better yet, who I have most trouble with.
“Smurf”?
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=smurf
Orrrr your Smurf account is for when you’re drunk and you don’t want to try
I wouldn’t call it smurfing if you had a separate account for being drunk as it would just put you in a skill level suitable for how you play drunk.
If you’re making fresh accounts so you can stay at a lower level then that would be smurfing.
As a fun aside, nearly every game with matchmaking if they define Smurf, it is ANY account other then your main account.
For the one part you are only allowed one account period for match making purposes. All others are smurfs. No expections.
Since Match making systems are unable to hand when the same person plays on multiable accounts. They just break, and it ruins games for everyone.
lol yup that’s a strategy of mine. My inebriated alters are almost always my regular name or username just with the letter J as the first letter.
Once in high cool I was assigned a group with my buddies John, Justin, and James. We came up with the idea to be the J team so from then on in that class I signed all my papers as my J name and went by it as well.
TIL. Thanks!
Also commonly used by a good player to play with trash-tier friends.
TBT my friend restricting himself to only deagle no armor in csgo, WITH A CONTROLLER
when a high ranked player uses a low ranking account for practice and avoid losing ranks
“Practice”, or in reality, mop the floor with anyone who is unlucky to get paired with them.
There’s a reason ranked and casual exist, there is not a single legitimate reason to create a new account and Smurf.
Not defending smurfing for egotistical reasons as explained in this thread, but I can think of one legitimate reason. A friend of mine is a prodigy in Rocket League and literally couldn’t queue with myself and our friends due to his rank. He has a Smurf account just to play with us
This is what unranked modes are for, generally, and when there is no equivalent unranked mode that’s definitely a failure of the game. Csgo had that issue for a looooooooong time as well.
There are also other legitimate reasons. The drunk account can be one (since even unranked modes often use skill based matchmaking), or the actual practice one (I feel for my alternate universe teammates in which I didn’t use a smurf to learn how to play more than one char in league).
Bu5 I do feel like the negative impact from people using smurfs for ego boost or to be an asshole in some way far outweighs the upsides, sadly.
I agree, 99.9% of the way. My brother makes a smurf now and again to play competitive marvel rivals with those of us that don’t play but would still like to have a 2-set match instead of a single side push.
Noncompetitive is locked to single push and so you don’t have a chance to play as both attacker and defender, so it doesn’t really feel like a full match.
I don’t really care much, some in the group do. He’s not ridiculously good, just a few ticks higher than people who don’t play competitive unless the whole group is in
Depends: if you want to experiment new ideas into established meta without losing rank on a main account.
In the FGC, tournaments are won by new meta findings all the time. Adapting to them is what makes the tourneys fun.
You can do that shit in unranked. There is no need to practice in ranked modes. Even a pick-up-game with other competitive players can be done in an unranked mode.
Again it depends. Some games don’t let you do these experiments on unranked modes. Some don’t even have unranked modes at all.
I agree with you that smurfing for the sadism & egotistical sakes is not fun at all. But in fighting games even alternative modes than arcade modes are nonexistent. See the scientific&exploration part of this too.
What games with ranked modes don’t have any kind of unranked modes? What games have unranked modes of play that actually play differently than ranked while also not being a non-standard mode where whatever you’re experimenting with isn’t possible outside of ranked play?
Even fighting games generally have an actual practice mode against the AI and you’re not limited in what moves you can do there. At least, good modern ones do. But I don’t think there’s a big competitive scene for old garbage like Pit Fighter.
Arcade cabinet games.
Arcade cabinet games.
Non alternative mode developed games.
A few non sorted lists: Fate Stay Games, all arcade FGs, Gundam games, 3D mobile suit action shooters, DS fighting games, nearly all SNK fighters, DarkStalkers, Street Fighter 1-4, anything on Nexica×Live, etc…
Those don’t even have ranked modes. 🤦♂️
Yeah, I agree this is reasonable. But there’s a difference between creating an alt account for experimentation vs throwing games to get to or to maintain a lower rank. My feeling is that “smurf” typically implies the latter.
I would hate to be accused of smurfing when I am experimenting with an character I am least familiar with, or better yet, who I have most trouble with.