this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2026
466 points (97.7% liked)
Comic Strips
21606 readers
1929 users here now
Comic Strips is a community for those who love comic stories.
The rules are simple:
- The post can be a single image, an image gallery, or a link to a specific comic hosted on another site (the author's website, for instance).
- The comic must be a complete story.
- If it is an external link, it must be to a specific story, not to the root of the site.
- You may post comics from others or your own.
- If you are posting a comic of your own, a maximum of one per week is allowed (I know, your comics are great, but this rule helps avoid spam).
- The comic can be in any language, but if it's not in English, OP must include an English translation in the post's 'body' field (note: you don't need to select a specific language when posting a comic).
- Politeness.
- AI-generated comics aren't allowed.
- Adult content is not allowed. This community aims to be fun for people of all ages.
Web of links
- !linuxmemes@lemmy.world: "I use Arch btw"
- !memes@lemmy.world: memes (you don't say!)
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
when a high ranked player uses a low ranking account for practice and avoid losing ranks
“Practice”, or in reality, mop the floor with anyone who is unlucky to get paired with them.
There’s a reason ranked and casual exist, there is not a single legitimate reason to create a new account and Smurf.
Not defending smurfing for egotistical reasons as explained in this thread, but I can think of one legitimate reason. A friend of mine is a prodigy in Rocket League and literally couldn't queue with myself and our friends due to his rank. He has a Smurf account just to play with us
So they just artifically inflates yalls rank? You realize this only hurts you in the long run right, plus its just insanely scummy. Rocket league has a casual gamemode, you don't need to ruin strangers days.
This is what unranked modes are for, generally, and when there is no equivalent unranked mode that's definitely a failure of the game. Csgo had that issue for a looooooooong time as well.
There are also other legitimate reasons. The drunk account can be one (since even unranked modes often use skill based matchmaking), or the actual practice one (I feel for my alternate universe teammates in which I didn't use a smurf to learn how to play more than one char in league).
Bu5 I do feel like the negative impact from people using smurfs for ego boost or to be an asshole in some way far outweighs the upsides, sadly.
Many games still use SBMM in casual modes, they just don'tshow you what your elo equivalent is. As long as they generally all play together, the average skill of the group will hit equilibrium far faster with the smurf account than with the original one. There's really no good answer here, but in this case at least the friends get a play session where they can participate meaningfully, even if they get a lot of wins they don't deserve, and the opponents get one bad game. The alternative is the friends are crushed almost every game they play together, and the opponents get one easy game.
I agree, 99.9% of the way. My brother makes a smurf now and again to play competitive marvel rivals with those of us that don't play but would still like to have a 2-set match instead of a single side push.
Noncompetitive is locked to single push and so you don't have a chance to play as both attacker and defender, so it doesn't really feel like a full match.
I don't really care much, some in the group do. He's not ridiculously good, just a few ticks higher than people who don't play competitive unless the whole group is in
Depends: if you want to experiment new ideas into established meta without losing rank on a main account.
In the FGC, tournaments are won by new meta findings all the time. Adapting to them is what makes the tourneys fun.
You can do that shit in unranked. There is no need to practice in ranked modes. Even a pick-up-game with other competitive players can be done in an unranked mode.
Again it depends. Some games don't let you do these experiments on unranked modes. Some don't even have unranked modes at all.
I agree with you that smurfing for the sadism & egotistical sakes is not fun at all. But in fighting games even alternative modes than arcade modes are nonexistent. See the scientific&exploration part of this too.
What games with ranked modes don't have any kind of unranked modes? What games have unranked modes of play that actually play differently than ranked while also not being a non-standard mode where whatever you're experimenting with isn't possible outside of ranked play?
Even fighting games generally have an actual practice mode against the AI and you're not limited in what moves you can do there. At least, good modern ones do. But I don't think there's a big competitive scene for old garbage like Pit Fighter.
Arcade cabinet games.
Arcade cabinet games.
Non alternative mode developed games.
A few non sorted lists: Fate Stay Games, all arcade FGs, Gundam games, 3D mobile suit action shooters, DS fighting games, nearly all SNK fighters, DarkStalkers, Street Fighter 1-4, anything on Nexica×Live, etc..
Those don't even have ranked modes. 🤦♂️
You’ve never made it past the score at game overs‽ Those are ranks m8.
And Fate & Gundam games in particular rank you and keep track of your usage and behaviors everytime you use your accounts. Nesica×Live was designed with this entire tracking process in mind.
The letter ranks based on the game score are not the same as competitive matchmaking ranking systems. You are not smurfing at arcade cabinets.
look up Fate/Grand Order Arcade & Mobile Suit Gundam Extreme Vs. 2 Infinite Boost.
I am saying we need something else to call experimentation other than being accused of smurfing.
Fate/Grand Order isn't even released yet, and Mobile Suit Gundam Extreme Vs 2 Infinite Boost does have a casual unranked mode.
I guess the demos then.
There’s only so much you can experiment in GEV2IB’s casual mode without your account that you can't do incognito…
Yeah, I agree this is reasonable. But there's a difference between creating an alt account for experimentation vs throwing games to get to or to maintain a lower rank. My feeling is that "smurf" typically implies the latter.
I would hate to be accused of smurfing when I am experimenting with an character I am least familiar with, or better yet, who I have most trouble with.