Smurf: What is a smurf and what are the origins of the name?

When playing any game competitively, have you ever come across enemies or teammates that don’t feel like they belong in your rank? That they’re way too good to be ranked so low even if their account’s level is low as well? My friend, you have come across what is called a smurf account.

The term ‘smurf’ is used in gaming to describe a player in an online game that creates a new account to play against lower-ranked players. However, it can also be used for describing a player who uses an alternate account or multiple accounts, mainly so their main account doesn’t end up deranking.

The reason they’re called ‘smurf accounts’ is because of two really good players in Warcraft 2. Because everyone would avoid them on sight, they decided to make new accounts to remain anonymous called ‘PapaSmurf,’ and ‘Smurfette’ and the term has stuck ever since.

Unfortunately for them, however, many developers such as Riot Games consider making and playing on smurf accounts to be cheating. If anyone reports a smurf account for suspicious activity, chances are their account might get suspended.

This is one of the biggest reasons that players look towards Eloking when looking for a boosting service. Our boosters specialize in toning down their skill level to fit whatever rank they’re playing on to avoid rousing suspicion from anyone. There are even more steps we take to ensure customer safety, and if you’re a CS:GO player, you can learn all about it in ‘Is CS:GO rank boosting safe in 2022?’ blog post.

The biggest reason players even make smurfs is:

• They only want to play ranked with their main account when their entire team is online.
• Their actual account is of too high a rank to play alongside friends.
• They play competitive matches with their smurfs as a type of warm-up.
• They’ve already reached the highest possible rank with their actual account and don’t want to risk deranking it.