Cover-Credits:
The recent crackdown on smurf accounts by Valve has caused high-ranking players. Gaimin Gladiators' support player Melchior "Seleri" Hillenkamp and offlaner Marcus "Ace" Christensen to openly expressed their frustration with these changes. On January 18th, Seleri took to Twitter to share a striking revelation: a screenshot showing an excruciating queue time of over 60 minutes while trying to play with Ace.
Seleri and Ace Talk Complain about Not Being Able to Play Together
This issue has emerged in the wake of Valve's aggressive stance against smurfing, a practice where players create secondary accounts to play at a lower skill level. This measure, while aimed at ensuring fair play, has inadvertently impacted the high MMR (Matchmaking Rating) community.
Notable casualties of this crackdown include professionals like Alimzhan "watson" Islambekov, Illya "Yatoro" Mulyarchuk, and Artour "Arteezy" Babaev. It has even resulted in teams disbanding their rosters, with Mad Kings ending their collaboration with estar_bucks following an incident in DreamLeague Season 22 where player Steven "StingeR" Vargas was banned mid-game for account sharing.
While it is certainly for a good cause, Gaimin Gladiators’ players Seleri and Ace brought to light the issues they face in the high MMR bracket due to this crackdown. On 18th January Seleri took to X (Twitter) to share a screenshot showing a queue time of more than 60 minutes while in a party with Ace.
Ace echoed this sentiment on Twitter, stressing the uncertainty even when they do find a game: "After hours of queuing, it's still a toss-up if we're on the same team." His ironic quip, "Dota 2 is best enjoyed with friends," serves as a poignant critique of the current state, referencing Valve's blog post earlier last year.
To address this, Seleri proposed a bold solution: the reintroduction of party MMR, but with a twist. His vision includes a same matchmaking pool with a completely separate rating system, rendering it ineffective for boosting purposes. He emphasized the problem's depth, pointing out that even queuing separately doesn't guarantee playing together, as they could be picked by different team captains.
