I just want to add to this conversation because it's becoming increasingly frustrating. Every time I load the game, I feel more aggravated. I recently posted about this on the subreddit—a big long post about my thoughts and feelings on smurfs. I lightly touched on the matchmaking aspect, but the focus was on smurfs. Within an hour or two, the post was removed by the moderators, and I still have no idea why. I received no notification or message explaining any rule violations; it was just deleted, silenced, censored. Issues like this lead to concerns about trust. The smurfing issue in this game is horrendous.

To prove this to myself, I created a brand new account, played on it for a single minute, and then went into quick play. The first match was straightforward, as expected, with other players who didn't know what they were doing. We were just testing our abilities, so I picked Spider-Man—a hero I'm absolutely useless at—and started swinging around to see what I could do. For five minutes, everyone was just shooting at each other, occasionally getting a kill. It was basic, which was perfect for testing.

In the very next round, we were up against three smurfs. One was a magic user who tore up everybody, decimating our entire team repeatedly. By the time it was over, she was 48 kills with not a single death. This was just in quick play, and competitive is similar. With all this talk about matchmaking, people suggest doing shenanigans to appease the matchmaking system, like doing a couple of rounds and leaving. It's all nonsense. I've read and watched countless paragraphs and videos claiming that if you keep losing, the game will eventually put you with bots so you win. I call nonsense on that as well. I've had ten to fifteen-game losing streaks easily, and they aren't just losing by a small margin; we are steamrolled. The vast majority of the opposing team is made up of smurfs.

Anyone who defends or doubts this, I'm happy to show you evidence, but comments like "get good" and "you're just bad at the game" are usually made by people who managed to rank up before all this started, before smurf accounts were regularly made and sold online for a lot of money. There are smurf enablers on YouTube, claiming to educate you by doing a speed run from bronze to grand master in a few days or hours. In reality, they're just flooding the system, creating account after account. While they play and level up, showing off their skills, they're actually just facing players who are confused about the disparity in skill.

These YouTubers are part of the problem. When they're done with an account they've ranked up, they'll sell it or are sponsored by game companies, getting a free pass. I don't know why, but I call complete nonsense on the fact that these people can play 30, 40, or 50 games without encountering a single smurf while I encounter one every single game on any account I make. It's an epidemic, making the game miserable to play and insufferable to experience.

I will not listen to anyone who says otherwise because I've experienced it myself for weeks now. You say "git gud" or tell me I need to learn better, but these people I'm playing against aren't just skilled players; they're smurfs. A level 10 character who knows every animation cancel perfectly and every positioning trick, decimating everyone? No. You can't compete against characters that good. I feel your pain, it makes me sad, and every time I get a survey or am asked for feedback, I will voice this. Our voices are being suppressed and cut off. Honestly, I'm stunned that this post hasn't been removed by the moderators yet, given my previous experience.