What's your main/highest rank? (select multiple for ranges)

What rank is your smurf? (select multiple for ranges)

What is your approx. win rate on your main? (multiples of 10%)

What is your approx. win rate on your smurf? (multiples of 10%)

How often do you throw games or not contribute to winning? (i.e. purposely not playing the objective)

Why do you smurf? (quick answers)

Do you think there is anything ethically wrong with smurfing?

Did you know that smurfing isn't against ToS?

What is your approx. win rate on your smurf? (multiples of 10%)

Why do you smurf? (custom answers)

Why do you smurf? (common answers)

What is a smurf? (EVERYONE ANSWER)

What would make you stop smurfing, if anything at all?

What rank is your smurf? (select multiple for ranges)

What rank do you smurf at?

What's your win rate on your smurf?

How often do you throw games with the goal of keeping your smurf at your desired rank?

haven’t made a smurf account in 6 years but recently my accounts have been getting banned because i get reported for being a rein OTP and playing super aggressive. I try to appeal but get the same automated response from blizzard every time:) so now im contributing to the smurfing issue because i just have to make a new account if i don’t want to wait 2 weeks to play again

I like the competitive structure but don’t want to try my hardest

Before wide queues i wasn't able to play with my plat friends

If you do it just to stomp on people, then yes.

I also really dislike streamers doing these '(educational) unranked to gm' streams. Woah a gm player is able to hit gm, congrats! Now that proves everyone should be able to hit gm now!!

I usualy off role on smurfs

Very frequently or all the time

I find it relaxing and funny. Like a comedy show.

You don't get stuck in a rank because that one smurf threw or that one smurf rolled you in that one match you had.

Get frustrated by games on my main account rank as it takes a lot mentally to win, so play in metal ranks where its easy to wind down/mess around

No, everyone comes against smurfs every now and again, smurfing isn't the reason ur a low rank, ur a low rank because you're bad at the game, stop blaming external influences and work on your own gameplay.

Yes. It's making yourself feel good by playing against players who are worse than you.

Im normally a lucio OTP but i must smurf to play with my Bronze-Silver friends. even when im playing with them i never touch lucio and play a character i dont know how to and usually have the worst stats. so long story short i smurf so i can play with my friends, and even when i smurf i dont pick a hero i can be oppressive on so nobody even feels like i smurf.

If you are playing with your friends and not being oppressive no, if you are playing with a mercy pocket and just steamrolling everybody, yes you suck.

To play with lower ranked friends without high queue times, and because I like being able to mess around and still be able to play well and win

Yes because there are unethical reasons for smurfing. For example boosting, if there's a high rank disparity (GM in diamond and below, masters in gold and below, etc.), and sometimes people smurf just to stat pad/harass low rank players.

To learn characters I'm not good at and to get rid of ranked anxiety

Depends. If you're a high rank player throwing peoples games to get to bronze and annihilate players then yes.

Platinum, Diamond, Masters & Above

Train different characters i cant play on my main

if no one would smurf i would also stop

Quick play isn’t fun, people either try hard like it’s ranked or don’t care at all cuz it’s qp. If you’re unlucky the other team is try heads and you’ve only got people who don’t care. I wanted an account where I didn’t care about my rank but I could still play with people properly.

My Smurf used to be the same rank as my main until I stopped playing on it, that kinda smurfing isn’t wrong cuz pretty much every high elo player does it to warm up before playing on their main. Smurfing in lower ranks than your main is disgusting tho, I’m only gonna play wide matches on it so it’s not unfair.

I want to have a competitive feeling without having to be sweating buckets. Plus I have friends I like to play with but can't on my main.

As long as you are not throwing games to ruin it for others no.

The same reason well liked streamers like bogur do unranked to gm challenges. To shit on people worse than me because it feels good. The only difference is I'm honest about it. And if I keep smurfing/alt accounting and ruining the game for others like yzsna/bogur/awkward do, it could become a big enough problem where blizzard finally decides to outright ban smurfing.

Because when I play on my main, I hardly make anything plus in ranking, my surf gets more % plus then my main acc which is annoying

Definitely when u do it only for the purpose of ruining other peoples games, for example, throwing intentionally to get as low as possible

Because queue times are ridiculous when wide queueing

Yeah, it ruins the point of having a progressive skill based ranked system.

I notice almost every other game in gold to plat 1 has probably a smurf in there that's the deciding factor for that team. (Excluding me) Which I think is a remarkable amount. But then again, I contribute to the same issues for probably the same reasons too!

Very frequently or all the time

It’s fun to troll in low lobbies. I like to play Rein but only kill with my charge. I also set my sensitivity to max and spin to shield and it looks funny.

Wish they got rid of the voice line limiter I enjoy spamming it

For fun. If I’m having an off game on my main and want to have an easier time. To play and rank up accounts with friends.

Not really ethically but I see why people don’t like it

Both accounts win rates are iffy at best cos of climbing and only playing in stacks

To play with my lower ranked friends and to learn heros I have less than 10 hours on

Yes when throwing games or playing the heros that got you your main rank

To troll my teammates or to carry

So I can play with my gf without outrageous queues

To play competitive with friends in ranked. Usually never play my main role though but cant queue with them without wide queue even if i flex role on my main and wide queue matches suck

No, It depends how you do it. Unranked to gms, Throwing, Boosting and all that is bad. But a smurf account to practice a new hero, chill with friends on flex role are perfectly acceptable in my opinion

Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond

My mains get suspended/banned for little things like simply asking my tank to adjust their playstyle and they shit talk/report me. I play in usually a 5-stack to not ruin some random's game and we just troll/ throw all game doing silly shit. If the report system wasn't so horrible, I'd play on my main wayyy more.

High ranked lobbies also just aren't fun at the moment, so double incentive to not wanna play. Sojourn has essentially been a 100% pickrate in upper ranks since she was released and they refuse to actually balance it, so it gets stale.

Yes and no. If you're boosting someone or just straight steamrolling low ranks, you're a piece of shit. I do it to do funny things, not prove I'm better than anyone.

Play with friends / meet new ppl on ow servers. Ofc you can meet new ppl in your own rank but there are very few of us and grouping is hard/you end up in wide group. Also, ppl tend to stick around in the group/duo if you win more ofc.

An idividual smurf, not nececarily but you are somewhat contributing to a larger issue ofc. If 1-5% of ppl are smurfing you will just get some games where you might lose but you will learn a lot. I got to my rank by taking smurfs on the enemy team as a master class in how to beat ppl in my rank, look at the replay from their pov and so on. In that case i dont see much of an issue with smurfing. If the amount of smurfs is higher it just becomes a lottery of "who gets the most smurfs" and thats ofc no good.

Cool idea to survey this, i hope to see the results and a nice thread discussing this further.

Very frequently or all the time

Very frequently or all the time

Cuz it's fun playing against autists like u

No it's a video game u shit cunt

Yeah remove mercy from the game

Very frequently or all the time

They are subhumans who clearly lack brain development. There is nothing wrong with abusing them.

Play with my bronze friend in qp without other GMs stomping him. I usually play off roles

My case no, but doing it just to stomp people yes

Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Masters, Grandmaster, Top 500

Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Masters & Above

Very frequently or all the time

Because the taste of semen is so fucking delicious

No, but the thought of sucking a dude's soul from his cock makes me THROB

Women don't deserve rights

One reason is to take the pressure of losing elo on your main account, I feel as if I can play better and it shows on my win rate, I'm just a lot more confident.

The other reason is to take advantage of the system that places you highly if you smurf, the system detects me and I'm catapulted into gm.

I've hit gm on smurfs more than mains as a combination of the system and less pressure.

But now the smurf detection isn't there so I just play on my main and actually focus on improvements

No, it's a video game, you care about a measly 20SR?

You're sliver buddy, it doesn't matter.

Good players will naturally climb and leave ur elo alone.

Either to play with friends or off-role

Depends on how/why. If I'm running around on my main roles in a bronze game, that's fucked up. If I'm playing junkrat on an alt because my Junkrat is significantly worse than my Tracer, nobody will even notice.

1 or 2 accounts banned/suspended

meh, i can lose against other smurfs and idc, just go next one.

To play characters other than my one trick without throwing games, and I guess it's not really smurfing since the alt is about the same rank and the alts rank is where I am skill wise on the other hero's.

Depends on the type of smurfing smurfing to play with friends or to play characters you don't normally play is perfectly fine, smurfing in a 5 stack to ruin a bunch of players games is bad.

not if you're playing heroes that matches the lobby's skill (e.g., I'm a gm dps main, but suck at genji, venture, pharah so I don't stomp diamond/master lobbies)

To have fun and not worry about my SR dropping

It is only wrong if you do it for the wrong reasons. For example, boosting somebody to higher ranks or intentionally throwing games so you can “have fun”.

To play comp with friends

Wanted to try placements again

If my main gets a ban or suspension, I play on the alt.

Yes. You are actively ruining games for others.

Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Masters, Grandmaster, Top 500

Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Masters & Above

Play with friends without pressure to perform

To play with my friends without putting them in streamer lobbies so it’s fun for all of us

Not unless you’re throwing or purposely hindering your team

I play genji so it’s fun to be able to actually have him viable even if it is a T500 vs gold

to play with my lower ranked friends and also to fuck around. Comp is so toxic and tiring in the higher ranks

It's not morally correct but I don't really care most of the people I have smurfed on have had fun or been chill

When I want to chill without the pressure of higher rank

I think smurfing in ranks way way below your real rank is ethically wrong. I don’t think playing in just a rank below is wrong.

Because I don’t want to always sweat in high rank lobbies, sometimes I just want to chill and play with my friends in the metal ranks

I think it’s wrong if the objective is to ego-trip/bully low rank players. But I think if you want to smurf to play with friends or learn a new hero then it’s fine

I do feel bad sometimes when I am clearly diffing the enemy supports and hard carrying on kills/dps/map control but I only try hard when the enemy team is running a cancer comp and we’re about to lose. Generally, I don’t try hard, I just keep it chill and don’t mind taking the loss if I believe my team doesn’t deserve to win (because the enemy team is just better).

Depends, sometimes it’s just a different feel to the game. Sometimes it’s to boost ego by having a better WN8 or KD. Sometimes it’s just to muck around in casual and not care about winning(I would only muck around in a casual and only in a five stack lobby with everyone else also wanting to just not try)

Depends on multiple factors. There’s a point at which hitting above your weight can improve you as a player. But then again there’s being shit on by an grand master and not even being able to get out of spawn.

Have fun I hope this helps your theory :)

My main account gets bad team matching for some reason.

Only if youre doing it to throw

I do it to play with friends that are out of the range of my main account, or sometimes if I don’t want to play high intensity games on my main I’ll play on a smurf instead at like 70% focus

Yes, I think some people use it to shit on much worse players as a power trip which is pathetic and giving teeny weeny itty bitty shrivelled little short dick energy honestly

I also have a lot of second accounts that are very low rank just because of the rank changes and I haven’t found the time to either rank them up or even place them (I have like 6 or 7 accounts)

My qp games on my main are all top 500 & GM lobbies. I don’t play comp on my Smurf account, I use my Smurf to play qp with my friends (silver to play) without getting a top 500 dps on the other team.

Ethically no. You play enough games in comp you’re quickly put where you belong.

I originally created a smurf in OW1 to prove I was better than high silver. I was masters by level 30 and peaked at 3800 sr at level 33 then stopped playing on that account. I quickly brought my original account to diamond after I stopped playing with my duo.
I created another Smurf after that so I could play with my friends in silver. Even in quick play we would get top 500 players and it would ruin the game for them.

I don’t think playing with your friends is ethically wrong. The game is supposed to be fun. However if you’re smurfing solo then yes.

I don’t think smurfing is as big of a problem as most people think. They’re just looking for excuses for why someone is better than them or why they are losing a video game.

Feels good to be the best

Play with friends and chilling when tired from work on a 400-500 sr lower account.

No, just don't smurf too many ranks, if you are GM and you smurf in anything lower than diamond you are cringe.

U2GM are educational (not from Metro), they play below high diamond/master for very few games.

Because i had originally made alt accounts to one trick specific heroes but now if i wanna play anyone normally the skill difference between me and my main account is now too large for me to wanna push up

Only to practice on characters i suck at like ball or doom so i can eventually use them on my main without throwing

Yes if you are using it to just have easy games and feel good about yourself

Play other hero’s that I don’t main in a genji

I try harder on my Smurf to learn new hero’s and get better it’s experimental but I do try my hardest

Playing comp with friends

To play with lower ranked friends and on occasion play in lobbies where I can just chill, as on my main I have to sweat

Yes, it ruins the experiences of others, but only if you sweat in a rank below your mains rank

Trying to see my real rank without my mmr fucking it up or playing with friends

To play with low rank friends and while high/drunk to not throw high sr games

Yes it’s pretty shitty to do I’ll admit. I feel bad about it (I used to smurf a lot) and have definitely changed my ways after some reflection. It doesn’t help me improve at the game and ruins the game for half the lobby. That’s really disgusting. Not this justifies it by any means, but it’s worth pointing out there is smurfing at all levels of the ladder. Just as there are a lot of smurfs in gold, there’s a lot of smurfs in masters/low gm from high gm/t500. Even high t500 smurf in low t500. Like I said it doesn’t justify it, but it’s just a part of the game everyone has to play around at all levels.

I think it’s really cool you made this survey :)

Used it to play with friends back when the rank restrictions were tighter. Haven’t used it much since the rank reset.

Yes, definitely cheating and unfun but with f2p it’s super common and expected at this point.

I don’t really play competitive when I’m playing with my Smurf account. It’s more of me learning how to play new characters in quick play where the elo is way lower in qp. This way, I won’t have my teammates abusing and cursing me in game over text.

When I do play competitive using my Smurf, it’s when the group I was playing with using my main account is in wide match. The queue time takes way longer than it should, especially in console pool. The fastest I have found games on my main account in wide match for comp was about 30 mins. There are also countless times where finding a quick play game, especially after midnight in south east Asia servers takes 30 minutes to hours as well.

Hence, I use my Smurf account which finds quick play games or even comp games way faster, even if it’s wide match.

I do, especially if their main objective is to play against people who are actually way lower rank than them and to dominate them in-game.

If it’s to find games faster, I do understand the issue and their concerns.

To be able to play competitive with friends (before the whole wide groups thing, and even then afterwards because it can take long to queue)

Not really unless you are purposely ruining games by throwing, trolling, or holding games hostage

Because it funny for kids to cry about losing to someone fairly better than them

No, people just need to get better and stop taking the game so seriously

To prevent any feeling of must winning

Yes if you do not play on your own rating

Playing/learning different heroes

When done to play at a lower rank and stomp; certainly

I only know how to play 2 heroes, and if I play anyone else I just lose. I've been trying to learn in quickplay but my quickplay MMR is much too high, so I just get decimated.
I've tried just playing it out but i'd need to lose dozens and dozens of games to reach an mmr where I could actually learn new heroes - Not a good option for someone who can only play a handful of games per week.

If quickplay MMR was less punishing, i'd have no reason to smurf.

I wanna play with my friend, and she is very bad, I do feel bad for losing and really dont like doing it.

Definitely! I just wanna teach her and get her up so we can play on my main, but this is the only game we play together.

To play with low ranked friends

Depends if your full tryharding in plat when your main is in masters 3 just play for fun and chill

Just chill have fun no need to try hard a

I own a second account that I was gonna grind ranked on but after playing a couple games around bronze rank I realised that's it's really not fun and kind of sad if you get enjoyment out of that.

Smurfing in order to shit on low ranked players to feed your ego could definitely be considered unethical. But, some players (I don't know what proportion) will have a second account to play with their lower ranked friends to have fun and play a character they're bad at or just not sweat the game. I find this to be completely acceptable.

To play with friends in a different country where ping is worse (>150)

Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Masters & Above

To enjoy the game more by avoiding high rank boring metas, chill more and play with friends,

No everyone does it and it's the only realistic way to play with friends sometimes and the only way to enjoy the game sometimes

Very frequently or all the time

i like the reactions and the subreddits they made me

honestly it was accidental, i created the second account because i got temp banned

To play with lower ranked friends

My friends are lower ranks

Diamond, Masters, Grandmaster

Very frequently or all the time

to play with friends whos skills are bronze and they want to be in higher rank but sometimes i wonder if my friends can hang in the rank where i boosted them to without me. so i tey to keep them in gold/plat

no, people in lower rank should actually feel what its like to play against higher rank player and learn from it. im sure it makes them feel disheartening but when lower rank players change their attitude optimistic about the whole situation and watch the replay to compare. im sure they can learn one or two.

no, when some players are clearly better at playing the same hero as you are. make sure to save the replay and watch. learn.

To play with my friends in lower ranks

Only if the skill difference is massive.

To play with friends in narrow queue

Only if the Smurf is going all out

Nah it's just a lil' bit of trolling

it's fun to observe what goes on down there and, sometimes i want a break from trying my hardest

kind of. i've had people tell me i ruined their day/night which makes me feel bad but, it happens to everyone at most ranks