How many smurf accounts are there in Ao2?
We know smurf accounts hurt the elo ranking system on purpose. They completely unbalance games, matchfix games and prevent players from reaching their true elo.
Ideally, elo should reflect a player’s skill with the game. But it just doesn’t. Even if 1000 elo vicinity is the base for players, you know you can see players far below that elo who play with game skills more like of 2k-+2.9k players, the same 2k-2.9k game skills that continue on the ladder until effectively that level of 2k-2.9k level is reached.
I’ve been re-playing this game for at least 4 years already, I know how this has been working. There are players who are outright dishonest about their elos, and who think it’s okay to just create multiple profiles on the elo ladder to prevent potential competitors from rising, by either downgrading those profles on purpose until specific elo vicinities, or maintaining them at specific elo ranges.
A smurf account is another account created by a higher experienced player, abusing the multi account creation system in order to force lower experienced players, who should not be matched against these players at their current experience level, to be matched against them.
Said lower elo players will most likely lose most of the times if not all the times, making this a matchfixing scenario where the winner/loser is known before the game starts. In other words, smurfing is a cheating practise, as the lesser experienced player will almost always be bound to lose, because the game is already rigged.
There can be many different reasons for the creation of smurf accounts. The real problem lies when players create smurf accounts with the purpose to block potential competitors from rising. And since there are no limits on account ownership, nothing stops a player from having 10,000 or more accounts, where only 1 is the main account. From here you can see what happens where there are not a smurf accounts, vs when there are.
Let’s say you’re player “John Smith”. You create your profile and start playing the game with 1000 elo. Let’s assume “John Smith” is in good faith and it’s just a new player who, already aware of single player and some experience, decides to go for multiplayer games. Let’s unrealistically assume “John Smith” was the luckiest guy alive and never fought any smurf until now. After some initial defeats and then starting to win and pick up, “John Smith” is now 930 elo.
But this time he’ll face a smurf. This time the matchmaking system will determine that “John Smith” (930) be matchmaked against “iSmurf” (925). In the absence of any further information, you can be led to assume that “John Smith” and “iSmurf” have similar game skills and that “the game will be balanced”.
After 30 minutes though, “John Smith”, even playing at his best skills from the recent game experience and wins he started to get, he ends up being completely outmanoeuvered, overpowered and steamrolled. Nothing of what he does in game works, he tried everything, and everything is still wrong. He feels he is being completely toyed by his much higher skilled opponent… “John Smith” thinks it was just one opponent in many and that he will find more accessible opponents in other games. Still, he finds strange that he was completely owned in the game. I mean… even other opponents he fought and won were not like this. Even the hardest battles were nothing compared to that… So “John Smith” starts to suspect he faced a smurf account. Aware of his suspicions, he starts to dig the game metrics, score, miltary, economy and even actions per minute(apm)…
Seeing the game metrics, “John Smith” gets the ultimate evidence. While he averaged 59 apm, “iSmurf” had 98 apm. He realizes that, in games he won, opponents had similar apm, score wise metrics and there was never such a huge disparity. So, now “John Smith” knows he was fooled. He fought a smurf, a much higher level experienced player, and never stood a any chance against “iSmurf”. The game was rigged from the start. “John Smith” lost 18 points so his new elo is now 912.
But John is naive. He’s led to believe that he won’t be playing smurfs very often, as he’s been reading dishonest spam comments by smurf players in bad faith saying that “smurfing is rare, or doesn’t happen very often” and that it’s just “bad luck” and that “he needs to play better” and he “has to grind like everybody”. 
So there goes our “John Smith” for more ranked games. In the next game, “John Smith”(912) is matched against “IamSoLazy”(910). The game feels like a copy paste of the previous one with “iSmurf”. “John Smith” unsurprisingly loses and is now 898 elo. But John continues to believe it’s just bad luck, so there he goes in for more ranked. He then gets matched against “N00bsteamroller”(890). The game is another copy paste of the 2 previous ones… Angry, John gets back to the ladder matchmaking. But it’s not use. After having played 8 games in a row, he realizes it’s always the same thing. He just lost elo and is now 700 elo. Outmanoeuvered, outraced and completely stampeded by opponent no matter what…
“John Smith” decides to make a comparative check of him and his opponents apm’s, military, economy scores. He realizes that at least one of these elements are much higher than his own. It’s clear all his 8 opponents were masssive smurfs, he knows it. He knows he fought players that, in normal conditions, he should not be fighting on the ladder, within the elo range he was. As a result he lost 230 elo, was frustrated and got even further away from his normal-would-be elo. To make it worse, it seems the lower the elo goes, the harder his opponents become. 
All of the honest players in this game have been in the shoes of “John Smith”, at one time or another, naturally without the exageration of believing that “smurfs are rare”. 
The question is, in order to prevent the ladder from being rigged by malicious players who want to prevent potential competitors from rising, and who are artificially either inflating or deflating player’s true elo, why are not smurf accounts banned? Especially where it is verified that a same player has dozens of smurf accounts, dispersed at different elos on the ladder from 0 to 2.9k.
In any case, you must agree that a 2k player that owns dozens or hundreds of different smurf accounts at different elos will artificially rig the elo ladder, disrupting game balance and fair competiton, by rigging games due to much superior game knowledge, practise and experience, forcing targetted players to be much below their natural elo. For me, this is anti gaming, the smurf is just cheating the race and preventing potential opponents from rising up, so that they can’t even get close to the smurf’s main account elo and he can artificially perpetuate himself there.
You know what they say. It’s not possible to win all the times. But to lose most of times or all the times, it’s too strange. That’s what happens when smurfing is allowed.
I like to congratulate platforms like Valve who continue to take a rigid approach in their games (i.e. Dota2) against smurf accounts and who consider smurfing to be cheating, anti-gaming, bannable behaviour due to disrupting fair-gaming competiton. Ban of 65,000 smurf accounts Dota2.
It’s just a matter of time before smurf accounts too get banned here. There are no excuses to allow smurf cheating to continue unadressed, it’s the number one complain in action/strategy multiplayer games. The only players who still defend that smurf accounts should be allowed or just “remain controversy” are the players who own smurf accounts! Because those players don’t like to no longer be able to manipulate the elo ladder with dozens (or hundreds) of accounts to prevent competitors from rising and, eventually, winning them.
I don’t own smurf accounts, and I have no vested interests in defending smurf accounts, so I don’t have anything to hide there.
Every player should have one account and that’s it. Identity checks or whatever, but make it 1 person, 1 account. If you try to have several accounts, it’s not just because you like to have several accounts! Let’s stop to be naive. Why do you need to have thousands of different accounts on the ladder to disrupt elo and rig games? You only need that if you’re abusing the elo system to your benefit, at the expense of your opponent’s demise! That’s cheating.
For the given reasons of game rigging, matchfixing and elo manipulation, I think owning smurf accounts should lead to permaban of the player with smurf accounts. Obviously, and for practical reasons, players who currently own smurf accounts, when such system ever becomes implemented in Ao2, should be allowed to chose which account they would like to keep, giving them the possibility to keep their main account. But after a grace period, any player with smurf account should face a permaban.
I advocate for permaban and not cooldown or simple deletion of the smurf account, because otherwise the smurf owner will then keep indefinitely moving to new smurf accounts in a never ending cat-mouse chase game cycle, perpetuating the problem all over again.
I already explained time and time again the problematic of smurfing but I leave here some benefits that baning smurfing can give to the game:
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more new players - less barriers of entry to new players, since they know they are not likely to face smurfs, they are more willing to try playing the game, and they will not be discouraged or pressured to leave the game because of constantly facing opponents with seemingly unattailable skills;
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less frustrating gaming experience - the lower/average elo players will be able to play with more fun and less disruption in the game balance, where they will not feel constantly overpowered, outmanoevered and outraced;
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more competitive ladder - if higher elo players can’t artificially rig the elo ladder with dozens or hundreds of smurf profiles that act as ceiling to prevent potential competitors from rising, the game competition will be allowed to resume its natural course;
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more friendly online gaming comunity - in online games where smurfing is actively condemned, the average player (I’m tallking about the average person, not the professional player) will have a more positive interaction, and as a result of a much more balanced game sytem, is more likely to remain engaged in the comunity, and spread good word about the game, encouraging growth.
This is my opinion on the issue. I think it’s time to move forward.
Ban smurfing. It’s just cheating.