Riot Bans 171,000 VALORANT Accounts for Cheating

Riot Games banned more than 171,000 VALORANT accounts for cheating during Act 5, according to enforcement figures covering Aug. 18 to Oct. 1, 2026. The figures include accounts that received suspensions of at least three days.

Riot reported more than 677,000 bans across six categories. Repeated AFK behavior and other gameplay abuse accounted for more than 288,000 bans, the largest total in the report.

Rank manipulation, including boosting, accepting boosts, hitchhiking and win trading, led to more than 76,000 bans. Toxic behavior and communication abuse accounted for more than 74,000, while botting resulted in more than 54,000 bans.

More than 14,000 accounts were banned for using external tools linked to stream sniping or automatic agent selection. Stream sniping involves gaining an advantage by watching another player’s live broadcast, while automatic agent selection tools choose agents without using the game’s standard interface.

Riot published the figures alongside the VALORANT Patch 13.08 notes. The developer plans to release enforcement statistics more often and encouraged players to use the game’s reporting system. Player reports help Riot improve its detection tools and methods, although the company said more work is needed.

Patch 13.08 is expected to begin rolling out on Oct. 13. Scheduled server maintenance starts at 9 a.m. ET in the Americas. In Asia-Pacific, maintenance is scheduled for Oct. 14 at 5 a.m. SGT, and in Europe it is scheduled for Oct. 14 at 5 a.m. CEST. These times mark the start of maintenance and do not confirm when the update will become available in each region.

The update includes Map Rating, changes to the Corrode map layout, a new Competitive map-pool rotation and several bug fixes.

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