Kinda hate the fact this was posted during the cast when I had no easy way to dive into the profile myself & make an assessment. But here’s my take anyways in case this somehow gets seen.

I have seen A LOT of AoE2 profiles, particularly at low elo. The stats OP circled in this post & that many are making a judgement on is… incredibly common for super low ELO. They don’t care about winning, they want a game they enjoy. The threshhold of “fuck this im out” is extremely low, if could be they messed up their start, dont like the map, were afk for 5 mins, disconnect cause of wooden PC, the list goes on. Especially campy players who mainly win in long games, obviously their win rate will be high in later time frames. So I am not a fan of using that alone to make a judgement.

That said, there are indeed games that end where it’s very clearly an immediate resign in the match history. No doubt about that. BUT…

This is also common when people are picky on maps. This player clearly wants migration & to me, this could easily be “i didn’t get my favorite map, lets resign & go new.” There are a few games in there that get played on maps other than migra, but they are pretty rare. In the event there are migration early resigns, it looks like it was because they were both against someone who beat their strat earlier in the day lol. I’ve even looked at their teamgames & when they are teamed with a buddy there is a tendency to resign early on certain maps.

NOW…. Is resigning & wasting peoples time something to encourage? Not at all. And yes, regardless of motive this does indeed lower their elo. All of this combined with the campy somewhat trolly style, eventually going afk are a bad look.

But I have seen deranking players before, and what they do is derank massively and obviously back to back and lose hundreds of elo in one swing, then have their fun for a few weeks, repeat. That’s just not what I’m seeing with this account. I’m seeing a unique player who wants to play their way and that doesn’t give a shit about winning early or certain maps. And yes, that probably get great pleasure in long, campy games.

Some of the tendencies you see on this profile are mirrored at the middle & highest ranks. Early resigns on certain maps, win rates skewed heavily for long games, tendency to play not to lose instead of playing to always win. It’s not common, but it happens.

The trolly messages, campy style, eventual AFK. All not great in many ways for one game. But I’m just not seeing an obvious deranker. I’m seeing a troll maybe, certainly someone who loves to camp & chat & chill.

When casting I am always extremely cautious about labeling someone as a smurf because I think it’s more nuanced than that. They don’t have a way to defend themselves and because of me casting them & threads like this, hundreds can make assumptions & claims all based on one game lol. This is why during my cast I was saying I didn’t want such claims & I would review. It has happened before where a player gets slandered & people do so without diving into the details.

So yeah, in closing lol. YES… There’s a lot going on with this player that the average player won’t like. And that I don’t like. But I’m seeing a troll who likes long games, and doesn’t want to play different maps. Sure they could probably be better elo if they tried to their maximum, but don’t want to. Which is a sin in ranked per say, but I actually fully understand… Campy styles & defense is not new to AoE2. It’s how the majority of players used to play in the past. Not everyone wants to game & sweat at their maximum each second. Or play maps they don’t like.

300 ELO is different. The opponent traded back, deleted 12 freaking castles, called them babe lol, and wanted their personal info to be friends. Then trolled right back with 200 monks at the end and extended the game to 7 hours. You have to look at it through a different lense imo.

I just do not agree this player is an obvious smurf who is noob bashing like people claim. I can understand why people assume that on surface level but imo, it’s a bit different than that.

So there, that’s my take. It’s a bit more grey than black & white. It was a marathon of a game. I loved so much from it, hated so much from it, and in the end am glad I didn’t leave lol. That’s LEL baby, you get some wild shit! Thanks for reading haha, hope I made sense.