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I agree that the GPDs and BSGs feel a lot harder than they should. I competed in BSGs and GPDs as I was climbing the ladder, and noticed that I was doing incredibly well on ladder compared to my tournament performances. I too was crushed in the first round of many GPDs and BSGs, and my highest finish was a Ro4 of a GPD. I got masters before I got even close to winning a GPD.

The only problem is... How do we deal with this? I know at one point the amount of smurfs in BSGs was rediculous and the tournament was becoming a joke, so I made a rule that if you win it, you can't compete in it again. I dont think that was the right solution though, if someone who isn't a smurf manages to win then you end up cutting away legitimate players from the competition. At the same time though, permabanning or temp banning players from sc2sea competitions isn't as effective at discouraging smurfing as you'd hope. I really don't know what the answer is atm.

Tracking down smurfers was also kinda hard (but mostly tedious), as first off you need to have some reason to suspect a player to be smurfing, and as a tournament admin, majority of the games you see are from Ro8 to Finals. Because of this, you rely partially on players to tell you they suspect players are smurfs, which can be a problem if the players are bad at judging if they are a smurf of not. I personally was browsing sc2ranks, checking match histories, looking at leagues and ladders and checking what league they are on NA just to try to determine if someone is smurfing.

BSGs and GPDs are a lot of work because of stuff like this, but I can't see any easy way of stopping it from happening in the future. Either you remove all prizes to discourage smurfs, or you try to find effective ways of discouraging smurfing.

Well things might have changed since I competed in them but I remember when I was rank 1 diamond and beating gm's on the ladder the farthest I got was the semis, losing was just due to my own poor play and unrefined mechanics and cheese defence. Without being rude I would make doubly sure after watching the replays that you were not just outplayed by another decent diamond player.

If you really feel the tournaments are being smurfed consistently you should probably take this up in private with the tournament admins. If its obvious there is a really high level of play in the replays then smurfers can be banned and thats the only way to stop it from happening.

No I completely understand as well, we have had smurfing in the wT weekly as well (which has not skill limit) where people have played on other peoples accounts so its only fair that it be treated properly. Problem is the GPD leagues and very loose terms to use and entry, and even then with the minimum number of games a person can still just lose an acceptable amount and win an amount to meet such a requirement.

A better example is I am still in masters but maybe have 5-6 wins a season as I mostly play customs, I would be raped in the masters cup but am uneligible for the GPD as well. Sadly there will always be an exception to the rule, and in this case someone is taking advantage of it

I'm not sure who told you the Weekly BSG has smurfing in it but I'd suggest you talk to those that actually compete regularly before making that statement.

I don't know about the GPD but I do know from my experience as a tournament admin that some people who go into a tournament expecting to win are often looking for any excuse as to why they get knocked out, the most common of which is smurfing, rather than examining their losses to work on improving their play for next time.

Remember these tournaments are run each week by volunteers and I personally put in many, many unpaid hours for every tournament to ensure it runs smoothly and fairly; I'm sure the GPD admins are the same.

Of course, it's fair enough you want to express your opinion and I respect your courage for putting it out there but next time please at least stick to complaining about the tournaments you know rather than discouraging the stream of new players I spend so much time each week recruiting to the site for the Weekly BSG.

As a regular player in the BSG. I have seen my share of smurfs, and do you know what happens to them? They get removed. Im in top8 gold for my league and yet I have never made it to the finals. This is not because of Smurfing, it is because I have been out played. Just because you think your good dosent mean there are not people in your league that are better.

Last night I ended up in a bracket with over 5 top 8 golds, I didnt make it past the second round, and the guy who beat me (and was amazingly good) was knocked out in the next. By the time the finals came around a player who I had beaten on several ocassions was in the grand final. This is just the way the tournies work, its half skill and half luck. And over the last few months I have seen many players that I have beaten previously reach the semis or even win it.

One day I will win this darn tournie... one day!

Each week i know for the BSG we Search through each player to minimise the risk of smurfs.. For an online event Anywhere around the world There is the risk of smurfs and Cheaters in general. This is always going to be an issue in the Esports community for online events. It is almost impossible to completely remove the possibility that someone may be hacking or even getting someone else to play for them. YOU JUST CANT DO IT.

Like i mentioned before the admins put in alot of time working towards weeding out these players and making it known to the community who they are. Refusing to give prizes and also entry into the tournaments.

Of course players are able to just go out and buy another copy of the game but again they are spending money to purchase a game. More likely then not they are going to be found out again..

So if people wish to continue to smurf

They Will be found out
The will be shamed to the community
They will not be able to enter any more tournaments


So Again, Admins work very hard week in and week out putting these tournaments on And they are trying there best to minimise these smurfs. I am Sure they will start to decrease over time. But of course will not ever completely fade out Until Blizzard Incorporates something into there game to stop it.

Anyways Thats all,

GLHF
peace

I do not believe that smurfing is a huge issue when it comes to these tournaments. I think that the main issue is people playing countless practice games (I understand playing with friends) but somehow it doesn't seem fair when you meet someone in brackets who just recently played 30 prac games with masters and grandmasters players.

I know that watching replays and working on my own play is what i should be doing, and I do try. However my main point is that becoming a better player would almost certainly mean a promotion. I feel that if a legitimate laddering diamond player has only a small chance at winning the tournament. The level is far higher than ladder.

Please understand that i realise that these events are run by volunteers, and that I in no way feel that there are error made by hard working admins.

I know that it is a difficult problem, and intend this to be more 'Food for Thought', not pointing the blaming finger at others for my scrubish play :P

Tournaments are very different to the ladder. If you lose in the ladder it's bad but it's not completely crushing like a tournament loss. When it's a knockout Bo1 everyone is not playing to get better, they are playing to win. So people will cheese and be aggressive and they will do their best builds. You sir are a diamond that is beating masters, so are they. Only one person out of 40 can win and if you have 10 people that are high diamond then 9 will be knocked out. This is the nature of tournaments.

If there is a lot of smurfing going on make sure you are reporting it to the admins whenever you suspect it!

As someone who has casted several GPDs I have cast one where I believe a player had let his rank on SEA fall drastically below his korean ranking to be eligible. However a player raised this with the admin and I believe he was banned, after losing the finals thankfully.

Other times I've watched players and been bloody amazed at their macro watching their supply grow at a rate similar to progamers! I've even mentioned wtf is this guy a smurfer? Only to see after they crush 3 series in a row in amazing fashion they get absolutely raped by a standard platinum players timing attack. It turned out he was just playing incredibly greedy and actually had very poor scouting and defense and would die to just about any timing attack.

So yeah unfortunately some sad people smurf. Make sure you report to the admins whenever this happens it does get them banned and usually result in a few clean events before the next one comes around!

As for winning a tournament, well that's exceptionally hard to do unless you happen to have a very balanced style, which most players don't until progamer level. Chances are you're either a bit greedier or a bit more aggressive and so your natural playstyle happens to work better against some players then others. As a result it is really damn hard to consistently win or reach the finals of a tournament. Make sure you're examining your own mistakes too!

All this being said I'm glad you included the suggestion of minimum games played as this is at least a deterrent! Perhaps 25 or 50 ladder games played? Do we think this would discourage too many legitimate players from competing?

People who tend to win games and are legitimate are always close to the next rank usually gold-> plat, diamond->masters and so have probably faced players of the same skill as to practicing with masters and grandmaster players that is possible and something that can't (and shouldn't) be policed as it is not wrong to practice with other players of higher skill levels. It is very hard to recognise smurfs though and to be able to stop them from participating in tournaments such as these, but I'm sure people who are running these events do so to the best of their ability in order that the 95% of people if not more who are legitimately participating in tournaments such as these can have fun battling it out to be the champion of their division.

I disagree, as someone who's won a BSG cup. I did get promoted to platinum later, after about 3 weeks of pretty solid play (like 20-30 games a day). This put me at peace with my league position - there was no way I was any better than gold. Which is good, because personally there's no accomplishment in winning a BSG tournament as a platinum player, and it is (and should be for everyone) absolutely horrendous if you are that platinum player who plays in the league and gets beat. It's maybe my only personal disagreement with Suipr's "grandfather" rule, letting people play if they get a promo right before the tournament - I respect that as a rule and as long as it covers everyone as a blanket rule, that's fair. However, on an individual level I question the people who actually choose to play in that situation.

One important thing to remember is that tournaments aren't ladder. And ladder rank is not necessarily a good indicator of how someone will perform in a tournament. Otherwise, why bother playing the games? Just have a bunch of people sign up and the person with the most ladder points gets the prize.

First of all, you instantly have an added element of potential stress. You know that the game you are about to play determines whether or not you will go on. Compare this to ladder, where a loss means you... just go on and hit find match the same as you would have if you won. No consequence. Different people deal with stress in different ways, and this means that not every player necessarily plays the same as they will on ladder.

Second, ladder is about consistency. Being a diamond doesn't mean that a player plays every game at a "diamond standard" (whatever that may be) 100% of the time, and does not guarantee you a win against a platinum player. Being in the diamond league means that you can hold it together to beat other diamonds about half the time. That's all. It is not some profound ranking of skill. You might earn a promotion faster if you play during the early afternoon after children get home from school, than you might at 3am, when the other guys queuing for ladder are the hardcorest of the neckbears in your league.

Third, different players have strengths and weaknesses against different styles and types of play. Being a gold player, you might handle facing mutas ok, but struggle against well controlled infestors. Being a diamond player, you might be comfortable against just about any standard composition, but a more unusual thing (like reaper hellion) might throw you off

Fourth - Series formats matter a LOT. Bo1? Extra pressure, sudden death. Bo3? Having a variety of build orders vs being able to solidly execute something, vs being able to read and adjust for a particular strategy your opponent used. And so on.

Yeah, there are always going to be the players who just don't play ladder, and if they did they would shortly get a promotion. But without playing and without lowering their league, what do you determine is "diamond play" and what is "masters play"? To me, this whole post seems like a whinge about a poor performance. I don't feel driven away by these tournaments. I feel compelled to work hard during the week, and come back next week and do better. I understand how it feels to work really hard and FEEL the improvement, and then lose to someone, not because you made a critical mistake or you did stuff wrong, but that the other player just did everything slightly better than you at every corner. That's no reason to take it out on tournaments or their admins. Basically, if you can't handle losing, stick to ladder. Can't handle losing on ladder, try the arcade beta - I'm sure there's plenty of options for you.

Also, your analogy is bad. It's more like... There's an under 8 football team, but one of them is bigger than all the others. Is it fair he gets to play with the kid his own age, or should he be made to play in the higher div? You aren't the helpless under 8 facing the under 15. You could win your games if you just play better. So go do that.

All good words of advice from everyone. It is true that play style changes between ladder and tournaments, maybe that is something i should work on. Also we should all notice that the very fabric of sc2 allows a player to beat better player due to build order/luck ect. It is interesting how starcraft is extremely different from other sports. In a long distance running race, the fittest man should win. However there are too many factors affecting the game we love, something that bring real credit to players able to stay at the top.

As for my own results, I do aim to win a GPD one day, but in no means am i trying to blame others for that. Thankyou for your words of advice

My first GPD (I had never played BSG) was #50. I made it to the finals. I'd say I was only just Diamond level at that point. I played terribly and lost to JoFritz first round the week after. Then the week after that I won. Again, I was still laddering during all this and apparently I was at a high diamond level just from a lot of practice.

The next 2 weeks in a row I lost 0-2 to LauDaiTinHai (I thought he was a smurf but every week I seem to be more incorrect. Two first round exits in a row for him.) in the Ro8. I noticed I was beating players I was better than and losing to players I was worse than (except when I lost to JoFritz, where I just played so horribly that I deserved to lose).

I then got promoted to Masters. So what is this blog saying? That it's unfair that the best players win? I assure you that I am no smurf, yet in the 5 weeks of GPD I played I was absolutely one of the best in GPD. I then improved (from ladder and coaching) even more and got Masters.

Coolbeans, ladder rank doesn't mean that much. Dante can whip the pants off me, yet I'm Masters and he's Diamond. Just because you're top diamond doesn't mean that you're better than whatever mid-diamond guy knocked you out. Maybe I'm missing the point of what you're complaining about, but it's really not too clear.

EDIT: Limiting entry to people with a certain amount of games played is dumb because I alternate between caring about US server and caring about SEA server. Sometimes I'll play 5 games in the whole season on SEA but mass ladder on US or vice versa.

Meh, it's not like your playing for cattle stations. If you lose, watch the replay, see where you went wrong and fix it. If it happened to be a smurfer that beat you, then so be it. If your long Term goal is to get M/GM, this small issue really means nothing.

I don't think there is a surefire way admins will 100% catch smurfers every time. As AsylumofSouls pointed out, the admins volunteer to get these tournies up and running. I'm just happy to see that players of all leagues have the opportunity to play in a tournament against players who are "generally" around their own skill level.

However, when it all comes down to it. I guess it all depends what your goals are. If your goal is to win a BSG/PD tournie and you have your heart set on it..... I can understand why some people may get so frustrated. In my opinion though, you should really look at the bigger picture and you will realise this is just a small bump on the road to improvement.

Think of it this way, once you hit GM/M... the whole issue of "smurfers" disappears pretty much. Just don't be a sad ass and go join a lower level tournie yourself :P

EDIT: The only suggestion (very retarded I might add :P) I have to rat out smurfers is;

Only let players who are a part of a SEA clan/team eligible to join. That way, at least there is a group of people that know who the participating player is. Come to think of it, this may promote SEA players to get more involved with the community

I've never played a bsgpd but it sounds to me like you're whining because you aren't winning when these are supposed to be "easy". Easy is relative to your own skill. If you're diamond then you still have the capability to lose to lesser RANKED players, and higher ranked players equally if you just **** something up or have a bad day. Are you playing equally as good on ladder as in the actual tournament? do you get to nervous and not play how you normally practice? these are all issues that affect EVERYONE in ANY tournament. There's a reason the same person doesn't win every tournament, even place close to where they COULD because tournaments are completely different to practice/ladder. Keep practicing and don't cop out thinking it must be smurfers who are beating you when it VERY rarely probably is.