Hey guys!

There is always a lot of talk about smurfs in low elo and the number of AFK people. I decided to do an experiment where I record the number of smurfs and AFKs I encounter (both from my team and the enemy, as it is possible to have a smurf on your team as well). I play in Bronze because I am still pretty new to PC FPS genres. I decided that I couldn't just call anyone who did better than everyone else a smurf, there had to be a fine line. I decided that if any match MVP got 15 kills more than the second person overall on the scoreboard, they were a smurf. Sometimes it's more if the smurf is ranked many divisions above you, sometimes its around there if the smurf is only ranked a couple divisons above.

Anyway, these were the notes I took in my phone after each competitive match.

Game 1 - Bronze 1 - actually one of the best games I've played in a bit, really close at 13-11 and good teammates who commed. Really good enemy Reyna but not a smurf. No afk. 

Game 2 - Bronze 1 - one enemy afk, definitely no Smurfs. 10-2 surrender for them

Game 3 - Bronze 1 - also a good game, no afk and no smurf, lost it tho :/ 12-14 loss

Game 4 - Bronze 1 - surrender in first half for us. One afk. 2-6, no smurf

Game 5 - Bronze 1 - two afk, 13-0 loss

Game 6 - Bronze 1 - enemy afk in round 6, still lost 12-8 bc team couldn't get trades. Both enemy and ally Reyna seemed to be smurfing but enemy Reyna was a better smurf. Demoted. 

Game 7 - iron 3 - Ally Reyna was self proclaimed smurf boosting a friend. 29 kills and the next highest was 16. Win 13-5. Promoted. No afk. 

Game 8 - Bronze 1 - 13-0 win. Three Smurfs on my team in a stack. Didn't seem like they were too highly ranked, maybe mid to high gold but far better than bronze players. 

Game 9 - Bronze 1 - 13-10 loss, a choke. No smurf or afk. 

Game 10 - Bronze 1 - one enemy smurf. Interesting tho it didn't matter since the enemy team had two afk players so they lost 13-6. Sad ending

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As far as AFK goes, in about half of the games you play in low elo someone in the lobby will afk. In about two out of every 5 of those games, someone else is likely to give up and afk as well if things seemingly aren't going their way. In about 40 percent of you games you are likely to encounter a smurf (even though it feels like they aren't ever on your team haha).

Only games 1, 3, and 9 felt like legitimate games that were not tipped by an afk or a smurf. I'd be interested to run this experiment again sometime to make results more accurate and see what consistencies/inconsistencies there are. If someone else decides to run this experiment, let me know what you find!