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Smurfing in League of Legends is becoming increasingly common, with more and more players having multiple accounts under their name as opposed to playing on a single ‘main.’ As part of this process there are myths and assumptions that people make about the smurf accounts and the players who have them that are often flat out wrong.
The following are some of the most interesting points that you might not know about League of Legends Smurf accounts.
There is a common narrative online that League Smurfs all cost 5 dollars and are bot levelled accounts that are going to be banned in a few days, but this is hardly the case. Though there are certainly bot accounts out there that you can purchase, the world of League of Legends smurfs goes way beyond that.
A very popular example is that many accounts that are open for purchase are hand levelled by employees of companies as opposed to being levelled by a bot. These accounts come at a premium, but have he advantages compared to bot accounts. Namely that they are less likely to get banned.
Despite common perception purchasing accounts is against the rules of Riot Games, but it’s also not strictly enforced. Due to issues finding everyone, Riot is able to punish blatant examples of bought or smurf accounts, but they can’t really enforce less obvious examples, this is where the hand-levelled accounts shine. When a player is buying their new main, they can ensure it was levelled safely as opposed to as by a bot.
The second part of this is that these accounts have a massive range of prices that will depend on what you’re looking for. A website that lets you buy a single bot account for five dollars is likely going to have other accounts on their site that cost hundreds and hundreds of dollars. Want a rare skin that’s no longer available? Want an account hand levelled in North America that’s in Gold? Websites like unrankedsmurfs.com probably have that account ready and waiting for you.
In fact, some accounts were previously the main accounts of players who no longer engage with League of Legends. Rare skins like old Victorious Skins, or the Pax Skins were only given out to Legacy players of the game, and that means you’re not going to find a bot account that has these Champions on it. You’re going to be purchasing someone’s old account, so take care of it when you have it.
Though it’s against the terms of service to buy a League of Legends account, the systems behind buying and selling accounts are hardly a black market. Partially because it’s against Riot’s Terms of Service, places that sell these accounts live and die based off of their reputations which means that they have high quality websites, good customer service and money back guarantees to back them up instead.
In fact, the best of these businesses have full-on eCommerce sites that use the same credit card processors as billion dollar industries. It might seem weird having something that is ‘technically against the rules’ backed by companies like Stripe, but that’s because the businesses are perfectly, Legal, it’s just the accounts that are technically against the rules once you’re playing on them (thus breaking the rules.)
This is what allows the websites to purchase and sell high value accounts like those with rare skins. If they weren’t legitimate business, they would never manage to buy and sell accounts that cost upwards of $4500 dollars, but due to their professionalism they are able to do just that.
Sadly there are some examples of people getting ripped off in the space of League of Legends accounts, but those are mostly when it’s individuals selling to one another, as opposed to the larger companies that will often replace your account if it ever gets banned for being a purchased account.
There is a common narrative of League of Legends discussion boards like Reddit that ‘smurfs’ are just people who are playing against lower skilled players to boost their egos, and though there are certainly examples of that, there are actually dozens of reasons why players end up purchasing a second account. From wanting a certain skin to wanting a spare account to help a friend get into the game.
Despite what it looks like on Twitch with ‘Unranked to Challenger’ streams, smurfing isn’t just about dunking on people it’s about having fun and getting what you want out of League of Legends. A very common example and one of the most prominent purchasers of League Accounts are people who don’t have the time to grind thousands of hours to break out of an Elo they’ve been in for several years. If someone with a full time job feels like they’ve improved it’s often easier for them to buy a new account and go through placements again, hopefully getting into an appropriate rank, than pushing through dozens and dozens of ranked games at a 60% win-rate just to get out of Gold and into Platinum where they should have been.
That’s not even speaking about accounts that have inflated MMR or other issues.
Fun fact. Riot will reportedly provide fresh accounts to pro-players are streamers who ask for them in some circumstances, this includes unlocked accounts that have every single skin and champion open right off the bat. Does that sound weird to you?
This connects back to the previous point about there being many reasons to smurf online. One of the biggest reasons to do so for content creators like youtube or twitch streamers is that getting recognized in a League of Legends game isn’t a good thing most of the time. When players want to have a calm game of League without the entire enemy team trying to ‘be the person that killed the pro’ it’s easier to jump onto a second account as opposed to trying to scrape by and hope for a good game on their first one.
Similarly, at a certain ELO you become so good that it’s hard to find a match of League of Legends, so much so that some streamers play games other than League during League streams while they sit in a half hour queue. This clearly sucks and is one of the reasons that Riot will help out streamers who just want to play the game.
Smurf accounts in League of Legends breed flexibility. Do you have friends that are a lower rank than you? Log on your smurf and play with them! Do you want to spend some time trying wacky builds or practicing in a ranked environment without risking your main account’s LP? Log on and get better practice than you would in normal games. Stuck with every Sivir skin but one and it’s breaking your heart?
Well, you know the answer.
Smurf accounts open doors to other ways of playing your favorite game, and don’t always need to be about try-harding against new players. Whatever the reason is for you wanting a Smurf account, they have become so accessible and reliable that it’s better to have one, just in case.
Plus, who knows, maybe one of the Legacy skins you find will be worth something some day and you’ll be able to sell that account back for a profit in the end. You’ll never find out if you don’t try.
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