Last Thursday,
Riot Games announced that nearly
300,000 accounts have been banned for
rank manipulation and boosting since Vanguard’s anti-cheat system was introduced on
League of Legends in September 2025, following its initial implementation on
VALORANT.
Through this system, Riot is targeting rank boosting and manipulation in both LoL and VALORANT by detecting when a substantially higher-rated player logs into another player’s account to rank it up. Riot is also targeting hitchhikers, meaning that if you play with a booster who is using an account they do not own to boost you, Riot can remove the rank you gained, even if you personally played on your own account.
300,000 bans among more than 140 million players
While
different sources do not fully agree on the total number of players, estimates put
LoL at around 120 million monthly players and Riot Games’ FPS at around 20 million, bringing the combined figure to roughly 140 million players, depending on the month, across the publisher’s two flagship franchises.
The 300,000 banned accounts therefore represent only a tiny fraction of the games’ active player base, at around 0.20% of monthly active players. These measures are part of Riot Games’ broader efforts to improve the player experience, such as preventing players from losing LP when a cheater is detected or when a player on their team leaves the game at any point during it.
The case of alternate accounts
In an article published by Riot Games’ Phillip “
mirageofpenguins” Koskinas, he also addressed the fact that punishments can affect multiple accounts, as repeat boosters can have their main accounts suspended.
Regarding alternate accounts, Riot currently allows legitimate ones for several purposes, including practicing champions, agents or strategies; protecting your main account’s personal-best rank; playing with a fixed team; maintaining anonymity; one-trick accounts; and simply having another account at roughly your normal skill level.
The biggest future change will be stronger account and device verification. Riot says players should expect more requirements around Multi-Factor Authentication, TPM 2.0, and Vanguard hardware attestation, with some restrictions potentially depending on a player’s rank. The goal is to make it harder to create and use disposable accounts, increasing the friction for boosting and smurfing operations and making punishments more difficult to evade.
