Smurfing

So to start this thread off what I DONT want is the slew of “Go to hell if you smurf” vs “Smurfing isn’t that bad and not everyone you accuse is a smurf”.

Just wanted to share why I smurf and get more of the communities feed back on it. (Don’t worry I’m ready for the hate). Valves new stance on banning smurfs seems to really only impact new accs while established smurfs flourish.

Personally I created a smurf when they took the solo/party mmr’s away. I am 6.8k on my main account and my friends average around 2.4K-3.1k. When the two mmr system was around my party mmr was a heaping 3.9k with theirs being roughly the same. I was happy with the system and the only reason they changed it was because it gated a very very minimal number of players from hitting immortal.

I’m very aware that their is an entirely less pure side of smurfing. The power stride players, acc sellers/boosters, and bad behavior score players.

I’m certain many will argue that I should just play pubs with my friends instead of ranked on a smurf with them, though to an extent that is a solution it’s still equally game ruining when my archon friends play vs immortals in pubs. I’m not saying me smurfing is a better of a solution it just makes the games more enjoyable for my friends and let’s be honest, we care more about our friends than people we don’t know.

I also think (and I’m ready to get a lot of flak for saying it) that smurfing isn’t killing the “new player experience” as many people make it out to be considering most threads of smurfing complaints are coming from crusader-ancient player posts where their accounts have 2k-4K matches. Do I think the potential of smurfs is deterring new players exists? Sure, but the likely hood of a genuine NEW player knowing a smurf from some guy just stomping is kinda laughable. Their new, they don’t know what all 100+ hero’s do, how strong they are, what the items do, etc…

TL;DR I wish they would bring back solo/party mmr. Valve gives me more of an incentive to smurf than not. The player base overall has less drive to play unranked cause we all care about the number valve assigns us and does nothing in terms of making the game anymore enjoyable for high mmr disparity parties.