When we first make a new account, it is known that your unrated games do lead to how Valorant decides your skill level for competitive.

While this makes some sense, as Valorant has to determine your skill level before you do your placement games to some extent, the system definitely needs improvement.

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There are some serious issues with using a new account's unrated games to strictly determine their elo. Some of the various problems with this system are:

1. Valorant uses the unrated games as a strict determinant of skill for competitive
2. More players go afk in unrated
3. The majority of players do not take unrated games seriously
4. Some people engage buy alt accounts, which primarily have the unrated games as all forfeits

Consider the players who didn't really focus during their 20 unrated games, or someone who purchases an alternate account to try new agents.

Valorant assumes that they are low elo due to their match history, which may make some sense, as they have no other way to accurately gauge a player's skill level.

However, we must remember... Valorant uses the unrated games as if they are a HIGHLY predictive indicator of skill in competitive matches.

This means that when they do play competitive for the first time, they will be placed in Iron to Bronze even if they win all 5 of their placement games with great stats.

Even if someone does their best in the placement matches and wins them all, their unrated MMR tanks their competitive rank.

The player on the alternate account now has to play and win a dozen games to get back into Gold or higher elo.

While they can climb easily, this likely leads to the experience that many have been complaining about regarding smurfs on /r/Valorant.

It is thus entirely possible that the "smurfs" that people are complaining about have not been intentionally trying to stay in low elo...rather, they simply didn't put their full attention into the unrated matches they played.

Due to Valorant using those unrated matches as a stronger predictor of competitive skill than their inital placement games, they are now "smurfing", even if that was never their intention.

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EDIT: I present you this image that showcases the problem

Due to some comments suggesting that "there is already is a smurf detection system", I decided to share the image above as an example to prove what I am talking about in this post.

If placements really are the primary determinant of competitive rank, the image above shouldn't happen.