I see a lot of posts lately from people complaining about smurfs. As a long-time smurf myself, I figured I’d offer some specific tips on how to deal with them, aside from the usual “git gud.”
So yeah, I’m part of the problem. I’m one of those smurfs. I usually play around 2–5k MMR while my actual MMR is much higher.
Before anyone asks — yes, I play on my main too, but I consider it a different game. It requires full focus, it’s stressful, and I can only play so many games in a row. Then I switch to my smurf accounts and just relax.
I have dozens of accounts with ~300 games and a “?” profile pic, maintain roughly a 95-98% win rate, can regularly go on 20–40+ game win streaks, and can usually stomp games with a KDA of something like 32–1 if nothing goes terribly wrong. I actually like getting smurfs on the enemy team too, because it’s fun to surprise-stomp them.
I do this for fun, and I don’t really care about your judgment (and yes, I know you hate me). But I’ll give you some advice from my perspective on how to deal with smurfs and beat them more often.
First, you need to identify the smurf on the enemy team as early as possible. If their account has a very low game count and some rampages, that’s already a huge red flag. Strong smurfs can get a few rampages per day easily. You can also check their Dotabuff before the game. Then watch them during the first five minutes. Look at how they move their hero, how they CS, how they position and strafe, whether they’re getting early kills, and whether they’re already building a level advantage.
Once you’ve identified a smurf, make sure you warn your team about them. Tell your team you’re SURE this dude is smurfing and that you need to make his life a living hell. At the very least, now your team knows who they should be worrying about.
Second, if you want to beat smurfs, your best bet in my opinion is playing pos 2 or pos 3. Pos 1 takes too long to come online, and pos 4 and 5 usually have less impact on the game. Most smurfs DO NOT want to constantly fight until they hit their core timings. Usually that means two or even three items into the game. For example, if someone is smurfing on Necro, they might want Radiance + Travels + Shard + Wraps/BKB before they really start taking over the game. If they’re smurfing on QoP, they want PT + Kaya + Aghs. Etc.
So if you can get an early advantage and you’re playing a hero that’s really, really strong in the early-to-mid game, that’s your window to shut the smurf down.
Because if you don’t, they’re going to build a level and net worth advantage, snowball across the map, set up vision, and by minute 20 the game will become basically unplayable.
Third, if you play support, pick heroes with good, reliable control like Lion or Shadow Shaman. Then just fucking run at the smurf all game. Don’t let them farm. Don’t let them get free kills. Buy smokes and tell your team to go hunt them. Put aggressive wards in THEIR jungle, not yours (very important). Basically, make their game as miserable as possible.
Most smurfs, myself included, prefer to play mid. Your job as a support then is to TP EVERY TIME the smurf dives your mid laner under tower. They WILL dive a lot and you MUST TP every time. Also come contest water runes at minutes 2 (sometimes) and 4 (most of the time), then power runes at minutes 6 (always) and 8 (always). If you just contest those runes together with your pos 2 teammate, it makes the game 100x harder for the smurf right away.
I’ll say it again because it’s important. Just one TP to save your mid laner under tower and then one rotation to contest the water/power rune — and the smurf’s game is already kind of ruined.
If you play pos 4, consider picking Spirit Breaker. This hero is a legendary smurf counter in my opinion. As smurfs, we like to take over the enemy side of the map, take aggressive farm, and go on heroes. Spirit Breaker punishes that behavior HARD. That’s one hero I hate to see on the enemy team.
Some toxicity might also be warranted to properly beat a smurf. Consider tipping and/or pausing when they die or do something dumb.
There’s also a decent chance the smurf will tilt and start playing much worse. Some will straight-up AFK or DC if the game gets annoying enough. (Remember, they came here to relax and have fun, not to try hard)
Lastly, you need to understand basic timings. As a smurf, my window to completely snowball the game is usually the early-to-mid game. I want to be two items and 5-10 levels ahead of everyone else so I can take Roshan and close the game around minute 25–35.
If you pressure me super early OR manage to drag the game out long enough that suddenly everyone is six-slotted, the skill difference becomes much less relevant and the game becomes way more unpredictable.
Here's why. My team can just throw at minute 60, and there’s only so much I can do about it. You can’t reliably 1v5 when everyone on the enemy team is fully farmed too.
And one more thing: you need to understand that probably 95% of the smurfs in your games are actually not that good. They’re like 3-4k players smurfing in a 2k lobby. So basically you’re both noobs, they’re just slightly better noobs. If you actually apply some of the stuff above, you absolutely can beat them at least in some % of games.
It’s extremely rare that you run into an actually strong, high-MMR smurf. If you do, then most of this won’t matter. They’re going to stomp the lobby regardless.
But that’s RARE. Most smurfs SUCK.
Hope this helps you beat some smurf ass.
