Whenever I see or hear the term, Smurf, I think of the classic cartoon and one of the better ColecoVision games of yesteryear. Alas, this is not what smurf accounts mean, and yes, I learned a new term today:
Smurf accounts, for those of you who don’t know, are brand-new accounts used by experienced players to avoid playing at a proper matchmaking level—or to just cheat, grief, troll, and be broadly toxic without permanent consequence.
For many players in competitive, free-to-play games, and for mobas in particular, smurfing has been a huge problem. It’s extremely frustrating to enjoy playing against people who’re either profoundly more skilled than you or just there to make the game worse for everyone else.
Thanks PC Gamer for the education via: Valve banned 90,000 smurf accounts from Dota 2—then got the main accounts too