Smurfs in League of Legends is nothing new. The game has been plagued by them since the early days, and it seems like each year Riot re-iterated the same thing: that they will do something about Smurfs, but when will these promises come true?
Smurfing in competitive online gaming is as old as time itself... at least it feels this way and it has become a real problem, in League of Legends. Fans have complained about smurfing and how it impacts their games, both in low and high elo.
Throughout the years, the complaints have simply flown in to Riot, but each year, a new blog post is put live, promising changes to smurfing, but it seems like players are more unhappy than ever before regarding smurfs. When will Riot finally make good on their promises?
LoL Players Continuously Disappointed After Lack Of Action Against Smurfs
Reminder: Riot recently publicly stated that "they are not happy with the current impact of smurfing". It seems likely that they are working on addressing the huge smurfing issue that has plagued solo queue recently. by u/CheckAcademic9098 in leagueoflegends
One Reddit user fished out the most recent ranked-related blog post on the official Riot Games website from Riot Auberaun and Riot Revenancer, in which they revealed that they are looking into the smurf situtation and how it has affected solo queue in recent times.
Riot have removed visible rank influence in matchmaking ahead of the season, which has resulted in the removal of smurf queue. This gave the Reddit user hope that there could be change in the LoL 2024 Preseason. But the comment section had to quickly crush their hopes.
In 2020, 2021 and in 2022 Riot has released similar statements, in which they promised to do something about smurfing in solo queue matches. Simply by googling "Riot Games Smurf LoL" players will be able to find multiple articles from Riot themselves promising improvements on the smurf front.
Players Believe Streamers And Content Creators To Blame For Smurf Issues
Many players also believe that content creators in the current day and age of League of Legends are to blame with the influx of smurfs. These steamers like TF Blade or Professor Akali normalize creating smurf accounts to stomp on lower elo players.
It's also important to note that it has become easier and easier to purchase botted accounts. While Riot have combatted botted LoL accounts in recent times, which means thousands of account sellers were thwarted, it feels like Riot is fighting an uphill battle without an end in sight.
Buying botted accounts, means low elo players can easily get into higher elos, disrupting the gameplay there.
It seems like Riot is making more primises for change, but it seems players have given up all hope on there ever being a fix for this massive issue in the game.