Riot Games Bans Nearly 300,000 Accounts for Boosting in League of Legends and VALORANT

Riot Games has penalized exactly 296,416 accounts across League of Legends and VALORANT for rank manipulation since late 2025, stripping millions of illicitly gained ranked points from the ecosystem. The massive enforcement wave, driven by the Vanguard Anti-Boost system, targeted players who bought accounts, hired boosters, or queued with high-ranked smurfs to artificially inflate their standing.[1][2][3]

The crackdown represents one of the largest competitive integrity sweeps in the publisher's history. By expanding the Vanguard Anti-Boost detection from League of Legends into VALORANT in July 2026, Riot effectively unified its policing of what it calls "rent-a-rank customers." The system flagged accounts where ranked progress was clearly siphoned from a better player rather than earned through legitimate play.[1][2]

The sheer scale of the rollback is staggering. According to Phillip Koskinas, Riot's head of anti-cheat, the system liquidated 105,718,655 League Points (LP) in League of Legends and removed 33,083,190 Rank Rating (RR) from VALORANT. The highest concentration of boosted accounts in VALORANT was found in the Platinum and Diamond tiers, where players desperately try to break into the upper echelons of the competitive ladder.[2][3]

Penalties scale based on the severity of the offense. While purchased accounts and those without a legitimate owner face permanent bans, most offenders are hit with temporary suspensions starting at three days. More importantly, Riot strips the accounts of their illicitly gained ranks and revokes any seasonal rewards tied to that inflated standing, dropping them back to their actual skill bracket.[1][3]

The enforcement net was cast so wide that it caught several high-profile streamers, sparking a public debate over where the line between playing with friends and outright boosting is drawn. Streamer Trainwreckstv revealed his League of Legends rank was reverted after he queued in Ranked Flex alongside professional players and veteran content creators like Tyler1, Yassuo, and Trick2g.[4][5]

Trick2g directly appealed his penalty, arguing that the group simply swapped to alternate accounts so they could queue with a lower-ranked friend, intending to return to their main accounts once everyone's ranks aligned. Riot's Director of Product Management, Drew Levin, initially responded that high-level players hopping on alternate accounts to elevate a lower-ranked friend is "basically the definition of boosting."[4][5]

Levin later apologized for the bluntness of his reply, but he held firm on the underlying policy. He confirmed that Riot's "stance on smurfing and boosting remains the same," though he acknowledged the company needs to establish clearer guidelines, noting that "how do I know when it's ok to play with friends is not something we've been clear enough on."[5]

The Vanguard system specifically targets three behaviors: traditional boosting, smurfing, and hitchhiking—where a player repeatedly queues with a booster to be dragged upward. Riot has made it clear that all three fall under the umbrella of cheating, emphasizing that the matchmaking ecosystem only functions when players are genuinely competing at their own skill level.[2][4]

AI

The rollout of these penalties signals a shift in how developers handle competitive matchmaking. Rather than relying solely on manual reports, Vanguard's classification layer automatically detects when an account's performance metrics suddenly spike in a way that indicates a different, higher-rated player has taken the mouse.[1][2]

As the Anti-Boost system continues to ramp up, Riot plans to expand its enforcement actions in the coming months. The message to the player base is unambiguous: the automated detection net is fully operational, and the only way to keep a rank in League of Legends or VALORANT is to actually earn it.[1][3]