Posing as a newbie has consequences, says Valve.
Valve’s been going pretty hard on Dota 2 this year, and the latest is targeting those who start fresh accounts in the free-to-play game so that they can play easy games and stomp rookies. Valve has also traced the accounts back to their main accounts, and says that from now on « a main account found associated with a smurf account could result in a wide range of punishments, from temporary adjustments to behavior scores to permanent account bans. »
Smurf accounts, for those of you who don’t know, are brand-new accounts used by experienced players to avoid playing at a proper matchmaking level—or to just cheat, grief, troll, and be broadly toxic without permanent consequence.
