LoL: Riot is working to “detect and ban” Smurfs in 2024

A Riot has already commented that it is working on impactful changes to its LoL MMR system, and now a rioter has revealed that one of the company’s focuses for 2024 is detect and ban certain types of accounts Smurfs.

Riot can now identify smurf accounts in League

The answer came in a post on Reddit in which rioter Iksar shared some of Riot’s plans for 2024, mainly focusing on the game’s ranked system. He talked a little about how the company wants to deal with smurfs:

Get better tools to track players on secondary accounts and be able to use this information when creating a match. If you are a player who wants to create a new account and play normally, we don’t think there is anything wrong with that. It’s up to us to put him in games with people of his skill level. If you are a player who wants to create a new account and play multiple games to lower your MMR so you can crush low MMR players, we want to detect and ban your account. We already have some tools for this, but they need to be faster and more accurate.

Understanding the smurfs

It is worth remembering that the practice of smurfing has two main ramifications, and only one of them is problematic for the game.

There are players who just want to create other accounts to play at the same level as their main accounts. For example, a professional player or a streamer who wants to play at a high level without having any type of “focus” because they are famous.

The second branch is problematic, as it concerns players who want to play in lower links just to “crush” the matches.

Smurfs are a constant complaint from LoL players

LoL players have been complaining about smurfs in their games for a long time and Riot knows how frustrating it can be. In its changes to the game, the company wants to create tools that can identify the level of each player in very few matches and, therefore, level them at their real level.

This means that, if you are a Diamond, for example, in just a few games you will be playing against other Diamonds again, as the game will understand your individual performance and level it up. For those who will try to lose on purpose to cheat the system, Riot is already planning a ban, as Rioter mentioned.

These changes are expected to arrive throughout 2024 as Riot continues to work on improving them while also monitoring the entire soloQ situation with the other changes it is making.