what exactly is smurfing?

[▪ snowmen ▪]

Is it just one player that purposefully deranks his account to play against much easier opponents?
Or is smurfing also one player just playing on more than one account? Some people play on more than one account to receive in game drops
Also how does that hold up when you have multiple people on the same family PC playing the same game on different accounts?

[BlackWing]

Smurfing: You play against lower ranked opponents.
This is not always intentional (e.g. if a high ranking player creates a new account he will be smurfing for the first few games without them being able to do something about it).
Some players do purposefully rank down to smurf, but it is uncommon to see that.

[Hamsterpeek]

Originally posted by ▪ snowmen ▪:

Is it just one player that purposefully deranks his account to play against much easier opponents?

This exactly. Not more. The rest is made up to blame someone else.

[GetForkedOn]

Smurfing is just playing in a lower rank than your main rank. You are technically correct to call people who purposely derank their accounts "smurfs".

[Toki's Road to 6k Elo]

A term that is too commonly used compared to burner/meme account, which is often what they are.
Not that many people can justify a Smurf.

[mORISgAMING]

Smurfing: you are decent at the game and play on a low account to face bad players.

Which is totally not what people are doing here. People cheat on CS2 and say they are smurfing to cope. Nobody has skill anymore, all using aim and wh.