So I made a post here yesterday, and I tried to make it short and humorous to get the point across, as opposed to the six paragraph essay I typed out and deleted. I failed to make it coherent enough, but I still wanted to get my point across.

I think that smurfs do ruin rank, negate any gains in practice (other than being taught over and over that you don't have Platinum reflexes), and ruin the competitive challenge. If I agreed to play chess against random people who claim to be my skill level, I would be upset if Garry Kasparov disguised himself and pretended to be a novice just to destroy me and talk shit the whole time. The first game someone wipes the server with a K/D of a magnitude higher than anyone else, they should be ranked way higher than the system currently puts them.

But to avoid playing with them? I would like to matchmake only with players who have had an account for at least a certain amount of time, and who have ranked in a previous Act. I would like to avoid people who throw multiple games in a row to drop back down to easy level and wipe the floor with everyone. And maybe filter by people who have bought an item in-game, the same way they did in TF2 to stop free, mass-created accounts from using bot software to spam the n word in chat and blast high-pitched speaker tests in voice chat. It wouldn't stop anyone from playing, but I'd like to avoid playing with them. It would also help me avoid people who might be using cheats, as cheaters less often buy items so as to not risk losing them.

Maybe a lot of people think smurfs aren't a problem, but obviously enough people see a problem that it musn't be ignored. Yesterday, there were people smurfing in 40% of the matches I was in, and they admitted it. It's not against the rules, no, but I desperately want a tool to avoid those people in the first place. They can have fun fighting each other pretending to be Iron 2, but I want to play on an equal footing with other Bronze 2 players. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.