In League of Legends a YouTuber started a new video series in which he wants to climb from the very bottom to almost the top with a single champion. To achieve this, however, he deliberately lost 40 matches at first.
What exactly happened? The YouTuber Yeagerlol wants to climb from Iron IV rank to Diamond using only the champion Yone. Therefore, he used a new account and lost 40 games in a row with it to reach the lowest rank at all.
Because even brand new accounts start at Silver in the ranking, which is two tiers higher, and therefore need to be “played down.”
This way, he achieved statistics like 2/9/2 (Kills, Deaths, Assists) with Amumu or 0/8/2 with Tryndamere (via OP.gg). At the same time, he placed no wards and hardly got any creep kills; in short: He ruined the match for at least 4 players 40 times.
This method, where strong players play with “weak accounts,” is also called smurfing. Suddenly you look particularly good, can play enemies into the ground, and show how strong you actually are.
However, this is generally not well received in the LoL community and is officially banned by Riot Games. After all, this repeatedly leads to frustrating matches for players who rightly belong in these lower ranks.
“Climb Challenges” were very popular in the past
What is the challenge about? This “intentional losing” to be able to start at the very bottom was widespread in LoL in the past and was often used by content creators and streamers to provide an entertaining show for their viewers.
It was also not uncommon for such bad accounts to be sold and bought by content creators.
In the meantime, however, it has become frowned upon in the community and is indeed banned. However, Riot Games has not yet taken any action against this Climb Challenge. Therefore, there is currently a Reddit thread in which players demand a penalty for the YouTuber.
Smurfing also exists in “real life,” when for example professional athletes appear undercover at smaller clubs or a chess professional is playing with beginners.
What do the players say? A user describes the YouTuber’s behavior as “pathetic,” and others even use stronger curses. The action is generally not well received.
However, many see the big problem with Riot Games itself. They have implemented a ban but do not enforce it:
- Bad Boy Barry says: “And screw Riot for allowing this behavior. Another proof that reporting griefers does nothing.”
- King Marik explains: “People don’t even ask for you to monitor every game. People are asking you to monitor the games that are literally out there on Twitch/YouTube.”
Are there also legal Climb Challenges? Yes! One that the German streamer Noway4u recently conducted. For this, he received 5 pre-made accounts from Riot Games and did not start at the very bottom to not ruin the matches there.
His goal was to reach Master and later even Challenger simultaneously on all 5 roles. However, he ended in July with the accounts “only” in Grandmaster.
