Riot Games’ Strong Stand Against Smurfs in Valorant

Smurfing is the act of creating alternate accounts to play in lower ranks to take advantage of the difficulty, and Smurfs are an annoying element to all competitive games, especially Valorant.

There are many reasons why players smurf, either to increase confidence in their skills, help a friend rank up or simply to be toxic. In this regard, Riot Games has been monitoring the smurfing situation and coming up with different solutions to the problem. This article will discuss all they have accomplished and how Riot Games’ changes have influenced competitive Valorant.

Why are Smurfs Bad?

According to the official Riot Games article on smurfing, Brian Chang, Insights Manager at Riot South Korea, has broken it down:

Smurfs can mess with match fairness and balance

An experienced player opening a new account to smurf may take a lot of time to get to their required MMR. This will affect the matches they partake in, making them imbalanced and unfair. For example, An Immortal player might make a new account and become Iron. He then begins to play a lot of matches in the Iron rank, stomping new players and keeping games unfair.

Smurfs are likely to be toxic and behaviorally disruptive

You know that toxic Jett that misses all their shots and throws the match or the toxic Raze that messes up play for everyone. According to Chang, they are likely to be a smurf.

As quoted by Chang, “Our data shows that accounts that we’ve identified as alternate accounts/smurfs are reported more often (not just for gameplay behaviours, but also for text and voice toxicity), and are also more likely to be punished for being disruptive.” He also claims that these players care less about the alternate account being banned because it is not their main account.

Smurfs constitute a significant issue, according to Valorant players

According to Surveys, Valorant players mostly complain about Smurfs, making it a problem affecting every player. Chang states, “In surveys that we’ve launched pretty much since the game’s launch, the single most frequently mentioned issue that players bring up with Competitive Valorant play is the prevalence of smurfs“

How is Riot Games Handling the Smurf Problem?

Riot Games has been working behind the scenes on some amazing solutions to the Smurf problem, and there are currently two solutions that Riot has come up with.

Automated Smurf Detection

Riot Games has created a small algorithm that is able to use data to detect smurfs in matches. After doing so, they make it faster for smurfs to return to their original MMR in their main account. For example, If an Immortal player plays with a new smurf account, the amount of points he gains will increase and boost him back to his rank on the smurf account. This will reduce the time Smurfs take before they return to their rank.

Chang has chosen not to state how the Smurf detection works so as to prevent players from stopping it. So far, this solution has been successful, with Smurfs’s stomp rates (how many points they have above regular players) reduced drastically. Change says, “By the end of the NA test, we saw that the 50% of detected smurfs whose MMRs we adjusted were within 1% of our target stomp rate, while the 50% of detected smurfs that we didn’t adjust in our control group were still stomping in 25% of their matches!”

Stack changes

One of the main reasons why players were making smurf accounts was to play with their low-ranked friends. This is, however, solved by stack changes. With stack changes, higher-ranked players will be able to play with their low-ranked friends, although this will reduce the points they attain from the match. This solution is a success with Chang, who says that “In fact, 5-stack matches became more close after we made these changes; since players were playing less on their smurfs and more on their mains, it was easier for our matchmaking to ensure a fair match. Today, over a third of all 5-stack matches end in a 13-10 or closer. 5-stack matches are actually closer in score than any other match in Competitive!"

With all of the efforts from Riot Games and messages from Insights Manager Brian Chang, players can rest assured that they will have fewer smurfs in their games. Smurfs will have more difficulty making smurf accounts and lose motivation to play. Due to these two solutions given, competitive Valorant will be a better experience for players all around.