Smurfing in Starcraft

[MerinPally]

Searched "Starcraft Smurfing" and couldn't find any thread about it so decided to make this, I'm sure I'm not the only one in this predicament but it makes me so much angrier than anything in WoW ever did, and I'm at the point of just quitting SC due to this alone before I come back to WoW.

For those who don't know, Smurfing is when you reach a high skill level but then purposly lose a load of matches to tank your mmr down so you get placed in a low league so you will win pretty much all the time, because someone with Diamond/Plat level skills will almost never lose in say the Silver league.

Now I don't get to play SC much but recently I've been doing well, was no.1 in my Bronze league, vying for promotion (for the 3rd time this season) and playing only high silvers and low golds, doing fairly well. I lost 4 games in a row and dropped down to 3rd in my league, no worries, but then I check the profiles of my opponents:

Check the profile of 1 of them - 2v2 = masters, 3v3 = masters, 4v4 = masters, feats of strength - 1v1 Diamond top 8

Check another one - 1v1 diamond top 25 feat, Team top 25 masters current.

Check another one - 1v1 diamond top 25, Team top 8 masters, both feats.

Now, it's not like those feats were old, they were awarded in 2012. When I point out to them how obvious it is what they simply say "Oh, I'm only masters with Terran, not with Zerg". Now I'm sorry but when you have heavy masters experience or diamond experience and well over 1000 wins, it's irrevelent what race you play in that area, you will have more ability with another race, than a silver play irrespective of if they practice, simply due to to experience. That argument is just complete bullshit.

Some of them just don't even hide it and it is beyond enfuriating. I'm guessing there isn't much you can do except report them and I've also seen this occurs in League of Legends. It's just ridiculous.

So once again, my chance of promotion is being hugely hampered by smurfers - normal silvers and golds who've never played in higher leagues be it 1v1 or team, I have no problem with beating, but now once again I have another mountain to climb before being promoted to a league that I fit in. I can't remember the last time I played another fellow bronzie, and my win ratio is well over 65%.

Really just needed to rage but I'm sure I'm not the only one with this issue, and it's getting ridiculous now >.>

[ryck69]

seems to me like you are not thinking this through, yes you are playing against players with much more skill then you(if you didn't think so yourself you wouldn't have made this thread), but you are not seeing that in order to get better you play against better opponents. if you play against same or less skill cap then your skills are never going to improve. you should be thanking these guys for allowing you the chance to become better

[Imnick]

seems to me like you are not thinking this through, yes you are playing against players with much more skill then you(if you didn't think so yourself you wouldn't have made this thread), but you are not seeing that in order to get better you play against better opponents. if you play against same or less skill cap then your skills are never going to improve. you should be thanking these guys for allowing you the chance to become better

I honestly think you are missing the point, that's what the ladder system already does.
You move up until you are playing against people that you cannot consistently beat, and are thus placed at a challenge level appropriate to your mastery of the game.
You then play against people who are slightly better than you and people who are slightly worse than you play against you. These are people from which you can easily learn something, because the match lasts for an interesting amount of time.

Inserting players who should be several tiers higher than you breaks this system. Against players who are significantly better than you, loss often comes fast enough that you barely learn anything at all.

[lzsg]

Uhm. That is not at all what smurfing means. Smurfing is using a different nickname (or account, in the case of SCII)than your regular one to avoid recognition. Many SCII pros do it quite frequently.

But I agree with what you're saying. It's dumb and defeats the point of the game.

[MerinPally]

Uhm. That is not at all what smurfing means. Smurfing is using a different nickname (or account, in the case of SCII)than your regular one to avoid recognition. Many SCII pros do it quite frequently.

But I agree with what you're saying. It's dumb and defeats the point of the game.

Mmm fine maybe I've got the term wrong, what is the term for this then?

@ ryck69 you're missing the point. Of course I want to player high skill players, and that's what I'm doing - silvers and golds. However, top of masters and diamonds is as good as it gets, they are SO far ahead in terms of ability at this game that the conclusion is pretty much set in stone, therefore the person getting destroyed isn't going to learn anything.