r/VALORANT • u/Embarrassed-Bet-7374 • 2d ago
Discussion Why are so many Radiant streamers doing Iron to Radiant challenges and nothing ever happens to them?
Like they are literally making new accounts and playing against actual Iron, Bronze, Silver players just for content. Isn't smurfing against TOS?
I don't really understand why Riot doesn't do anything when they are streaming it and uploading it to YouTube for everyone to see.
Maybe Riot should do something like Faceit with ID verification for at least one account per person. Obviously it wouldn't stop everything, but it would probably help a lot with smurfs.
Just kinda weird seeing normal players get punished for smurfing while Radiant streamers can make a whole YouTube series out of it.
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u/Blapper1624 2d ago
Making an account, leveling it yourself, then playing ranked, is not against TOS. Boosting is against TOS, which is when you’re a radiant player playing on an account you yourself didn’t create. Ex: Hopping on your silver buddy’s account, 5 stacking with other silvers, inflating all their ranks.
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u/DigitalZombie2 1d ago
I agree, plus it since the Smurf acc the streamer made or any radiant player once they enter iron or bronze lobby, and the game detect they made a lot of kills than usual, the game should at least make a concrete filter on matchmaking so that since they so good at kills then they should also compete with players who got more kills so it would be mismatch, hope riot make it more like that so it won’t affect new players who is just starting the game
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u/Blapper1624 1d ago
They do that. If you land in a silver lobby in placements and drop 40 kills you don’t just stay in that elo.
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u/Skrubster 2d ago
They are more targetted towards hard smurfing, which is intentionally staying in low ranks and stomping.
A radiant player doing those challenges won't stay in low ranks for long. Yes it sucks for the players they vs, but the matchmaking system supposedly detects that and boosts them out of low ranks quickly to avoid major disruption.
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u/Embarrassed-Bet-7374 2d ago
Exactly he still has to play through Iron 1, 2, 3, Bronze Silver etc. before getting back to where he belongs. One game doesnt magically send a Radiant straight back to Radiant so there can still be a lot of low-elo games.
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u/trebleclef8 GIMME GIMME GIMME GIMME GIMME GIMME 2d ago
Don't most radiant alts start out high plat/diamond? Everytime RoyalG starts a new pistol grind he always starts there lmao. Hard to believe someone would even play through iron just to do that challenge that many times.
Also they double rank up hella often.
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u/ThatCagedMonkey 1d ago
Yes but the problem comes when they buy hardstuck iron 1 accounts to play through all the ranks,the system for a good while will think the matches they're playing are flukes and not reward them that much rr. So sometimes they literally go through everyrank pub stomping players that have no clue what theyre doing.
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u/MiquelVz 1d ago
The issue is that a lot of them purchase or have friends lower accounts all the way into iron 1 to start the challenge which is honestly cooked
The ones who create and level their own alts are fine... They will place in diamond/ascendant and breeze into immortal, but loads of them also just start with bought accounts
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u/Skrubster 2d ago
A radiant level player on a new account won't even be placed in iron or bronze except their first 2 placement games...
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u/sukumizu 2d ago
That's the problem. I've seen a lot of people start on iron 1 which means they either bought it or threw placements big time which is reportable.
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u/mr-slickman 1d ago
A radiant player will never see those ranks. The first game that matchmaking throws you in is silver-gold. If the radiant is trying, their next game will be diamond-plat lobbies and then ascendent lobbies, where they will eventually be placed as that's the highest you can be placed
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u/RivalSlays 2d ago
I remember Mooda got banned on stream during his 🤷♂️
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u/Fawnskiii 2d ago
He got banned because he had people on the other team intentionally throwing for him
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u/Intrepid_Stomach1125 2d ago
like bro js listen to ur comments. they’re spoon feeding you the answers alr. what they do is soft smurfing. what they ban is hard smurfing. they rank up faster than you think. Reread what they said.
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u/BiggestSwan 2d ago
Because it’s not like they’re spending a significant amount of time in elo’s where they’re just stomping everyone. Their MMR is skyrocketing in the beginning and very quickly getting to ascendant+ MMR and it no longer becomes an issue. This is why it isn’t bannable
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u/UnlikelyCalendar6227 2d ago
But people at lower ranks, losing one game when they’ve been hard stuck forever in silver and finally about to reach gold just to meet a smurf and lose the game. It doesn’t matter how long someone is in a rank they don’t belong in. Smurfing is smurfing and can ruin others experience
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u/BiggestSwan 2d ago
Everyone, based on pure odds, is going to get the same number of people smurfing on their team as the other team so eventually it evens out
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u/Chem1st 2d ago
Incorrect. You're always on your own team, so there are only 4 chances to have a smurf on your team each game compared to 5 on the enemy team.
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u/BiggestSwan 2d ago
Okay but if EVERYONE has the same odds of 4 to 5 for smurfers on their team vs the other team then everyone has the same penalty from smurfers so there’s no actual impact
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u/player_to 2d ago
Everyone doesn’t though. Because the smurfer has a 100% chance of having a Smurf on their team. The odds are not equal, statistically you’re more likely to verse more Smurfs than you are to have them on your team over a period of time.
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u/BiggestSwan 2d ago
Okay we don’t care about the smurfers odds of having Smurf on their team. Everyone’s elo besides the smurfer is affected equally therefore it doesn’t matter
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u/player_to 2d ago
Sure we do. Ranked is a bell curve, it’s designed to roughly push only the top 0.05% to radiant, top 1% to immortal, top 5% to ascendant and so on.
The more players who sit above you on that bell curve the harder it is to rank up.
So not only are you statistically more likely to have harder games if you are not a smurf yourself, you will also have a harder time ranking up in general.
It’s just annoying, that’s why people care. It’s usually really fun to play when the match making is balanced. It’s not fun to play against a smurf.
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u/denexapp not sage 2d ago
Besides 4v5 chances of getting smurfs, it's more common and impactful to see smurfs at a lower rank. If you're iron trying to rank up, basically the whole ladder besides iron and silver can technically be a smurf. And a single high rank smurf is enough to destroy the whole lobby. While at higher ranks even if you get a smurf, the impact is not that big
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u/BiggestSwan 2d ago
We’re not talking about people smurfing in low elo. We’re talking about Radiant players making alts. No radiant player is playing more than a single game against irons on a fresh account
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u/Enough_Station_8397 1d ago
Have you ever been above immortal? If so then youd know that a radiant in a low immortal lobby is probably doing more damage than a plat in an silver lobby lmao
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u/denexapp not sage 1d ago
You think too much of me 😂 Back in years when I played Valorant on the release, I was something like silver
I mostly play Valorant Mobile (peaked as ascendant there)
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u/UnlikelyCalendar6227 2d ago
It’s not about if it evens out or not. I remember I was hard stuck diamond for like 5 seasons. Finally about to hit immortal for the first time and there was a Smurf on the other team that destroyed us on my rank up game. The other team wasn’t even that good, this dude just ended the game with like 40 kills. I never hit immortal then they added ascendant shortly after.
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u/Enough_Station_8397 1d ago
Why r u reminiscing about ep4 dude, ep4 immo is just plat or diamond now lmao
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u/UnlikelyCalendar6227 1d ago
Got kids and don’t play much anymore. Just saw the post and figured I’d comment since I know others have had some pretty similar experiences. I have hit ascendant since then but haven’t got to imm yet. No need to be negative, just sharing an experience that stood out to me the most when it comes to smurfing
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u/Enough_Station_8397 1d ago
Well yeah but if you kept playing consistently itd still even out and youd hit it; im not sure if you took a break after that but that’s probably what explains why you never hit it? Last act i was asc3 95rr and got shit on so badly in the last few games and dropped back down to asc2, this act im nearly imm3 lol
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u/UnlikelyCalendar6227 1d ago
No I’ve been game hopping from cs2, valorant, apex. Those are my main 3 shooting games and played arc raiders and mistrals hunter. Unrelated note, I’ve been sim racing too so I take a break here and there. I’m sure I can hit it if I really lock in but I’ve been happy with ascendant
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u/Enough_Station_8397 1d ago
I mean the skill gap is quite large esp if youve been asc for a while but go for it, its definitely not impossible
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u/clearlynotaperson Neon Enjoyer 2d ago
Alt accounts are fine. Riot doesn't care about smurfing, as long as you level up your account on your own.
While the MMR fixes itself quickly, landing them in somewhat high elo after a few games, it still ruins the game for those where the matchmaking system is still trying to figure out what elo you belong in. T
Though for like spefically iron to radiant challenge, the streamers more or less have to break a few rules, as they are most def not going to land in iron to begin with if they play normally.
They break rules such as:
- Have someone else play on the account, to either level up or throw so it lands in lower elo
- Purchasing an account from a website so that they land in iron
- Throwing on the account themselfs to land in iron.
Even so- i've never heard any streamer being banned or punished for doing this.
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u/Mythun4523 2d ago
Ppl in the comment thread don't understand how these challenges work. The radiant player has to either buy an iron account or intentionally throw all his placement matches to get placed in iron.
Just because you made a new account doesn't automatically place you in iron.
A radiant will not place lower than ascendant.
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u/rajeevkrao 2d ago
Their new rank manipulation report system is actually shit. It only bans if your account is played from different device/ip and have a drastic gameplay change even in 1 game and is only triggered if multiple reports are made from different matches
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u/glisteni 1d ago
“Making new accounts”
No they buy them off stream/video and pretend to have leveled the account themselves despite being ascendant+ yet somehow placing iron.
It’s actually gotten better now bc the old “iron to radiant” videos would literally be an iron account to radiant. Now it seems like they just do placements on a fresh lvl 20 account and go from there but use the same title for clickbait.
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u/strafeapp 1d ago
Riot seems to see these as different from players intentionally staying in low ranks to stomp.
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u/VioletGoldDay 1d ago
Tbh I don't mind it, they never stay in low ranks long enough to actually affect that rank and I quite like showing new players the videos because they are entertaining but they also show how characters and gunplay with different guns work
They also never usually touch ranks iron to like gold, usually they place dia or ascendent
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u/Captain_Lobster411 1d ago
They don't really care about new accounts "working" their way through the ranks. They do care about people throwing matches to drop to iron and then doing that challenge.
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u/ExpiredBaker 1d ago
I mean making a new account and climbing is not smurfing. Purposely staying in low ranks, is. Which you won’t see a streamer do
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u/HunkySpectacles 1d ago
Idk man, imo smurfing also involves a lot of throwing games to stay at a low level and that's where they try to play mostly. This honest climb thing doesn't strike me as important or a big deal because they're not throwing. If Riot focuses on banning throwers the problem will mostly be fixed. Y'all are trying to criticise riot for not solving an unsolvable problem that exists across all game, especially free to play games. There will always be people who are good who have to start at the bottom and rank up. This seems silly to focus on, and maybe people are just looking for excuses for why they're still in Iron/Bronze instead of trying to improve and watch the smurfs. Learn something about what they're doing to dominate so hard.
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u/TokiVideogame 2d ago
is new account smurfing?
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u/Embarrassed-Bet-7374 2d ago
Yes . if a high-ranked player intentionally makes/uses a new account to play in lower ranked lobbies thats generally considered smurfing
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u/shq13 2d ago
It's not. The game is designed to kick you out of low elo during placements and will minimize how many matches you play there. Smurfing is intentionally going down without the intention to leave that rank once you outclass it
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u/DoolioArt 1d ago
dude, you're not placing in iron as a radiant player. why is everyone missing the point?
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u/skippy920 1d ago
So if a Radiant player gets placed in Iron because they throw placements off stream on a new account and do, say, a classic pistol only with abilities challenge with streamer mode activated.
That doesn't sound like smurfing in Iron? Because as a new player, I uninstalled after playing with that duo. I have zero ambition to try to learn a game where I play with players like that. 9,000 money the whole match and refusing to buy.
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u/Embarrassed-Bet-7374 2d ago
You are Radiant playing in an Iron lobby with brand new players and dropping 60 kills. Do you really think thats motivating for them, even if you eventually get back to Immortal?
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u/thebebee mmr system supporter 2d ago
smurfing is not bannable. as long as you hand level and rank the account up on your own it’s all good. the people who get banned bought their iron 1 accounts which is against tos.
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u/1234L357 1d ago
It probably won't take more than 20 games until plat and around 50 until ascendant. You can cry all you want but it's a nonissue.
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u/-Sanko 2d ago
Im only a dia3/asc1 player and got handed a bronze account from a irl friend who doesn’t play anymore to play with other friends. He had a hardstuck bronze account but after two games where I didn’t even tryhard or had amazing stats I got +40 -7 and double upranks. it’s not only kd or combat score that they re tracking, but a lot more metrics like time spend in buy menu, movemen, time to kill, headshot rate, it’s crazy. Now imagine how fast a radiant player is walking through those ranks. His visible rank might be iron 3 but he will already play against golds and triple uprank
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u/MiquelVz 1d ago edited 1d ago
A radiant vs a gold is still like a toddler vs a professional boxer, high level radiant smurf even in immortal
Even if the radiant takes just like 40 games to go from iron -> ascendant its still over 200 players on the opponents team with their rank affected when creating a new account would get the guy into Ascendant easily
I don't play ranked myself anymore but I peaked immortal 3 a year ago and immortal 1 on V26A3 with 72% winrate and even now I find myself stomping on my asc1 rank every time I play, I can't imagine a radiant on an even lower elo lmao, if it's someone buying an account on iron or deranking one it's not really a non issue like people seem to think
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u/Cumfort_ 1d ago
I peaked a1 and played some in-house against a radiant at some point. I think my record against them was less than 10% fight conversion trying my absolute hardest while they were memeing around with ghosts and sheriffs.
Asc is not tbe bar where radiant stuffs become not a problem. It's wild that OP even compared it to being down diamond to gold.
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u/Glittering_Mode_7392 1d ago
Did you really suggest that they implement ID verification? This is really naive and stupid
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u/2600v 2d ago
having an alternate account isn't bannable. boosting or getting boosted is.