The League of Legends devs have commented on the topic of smurfing in competitive games as the Season 14 ranked split starts, vowing to do more to clamp down in the near future.
The ranked season for League of Legends has just begun. With a brand new ranked season, players have begun to start their climb once more. Starting off with their placement matches, the hardcore ranked grinders need to undergo plenty of matches, especially since Riot has apologized for placing players much lower than previously.
Not only do they need to grind games out for a higher rank, but they’ll need to be wary of smurfs. smurfing has been a problem in League of Legends since its inception with high-ranked players making a new account and purposefully deranking it so they can stomp newer players.
The topic of smurfing has always been contentious, with Riot being split on whether or not the practice should be allowed. A recent dev AMA has given more insight into how the devs feel about the topic, and what their plans are going into the future.
LoL devs look to create new tools to “detect and ban” smurf accounts
When answering questions about smurfing, Riot Iksar gave more insight into how the developers feel about players making new accounts.
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“If you are a player who wants to create a new account and play normally, we don’t think there is anything wrong with that.” the dev stated, claiming that eventually you should reach a similar rank to your skill level.
Riot is striving to “detect and ban” accounts that have been created to be purposefully deranked and smurf.
“If you are a player who wants to create a new account to run it down a bunch of games to lower your mmr and smash on low mmr players, we want to detect and ban your account.”
The devs have mentioned that while they have tools in place, they’re looking to improve them so that they’re “faster and more accurate.”