Riot Games Purged 296,416 Accounts In One Year Over Rank Manipulation
Riot's own numbers draw the line it is willing to defend: sub-accounts as a category are not the target, rank manipulation is, and the 296,416 figure is the measure of how much enforcement it will commit to.
Reporting from 1 source: Game Spark.
Riot Games published a Japanese-language account of how its Vanguard Anti-Boost system detects smurfing in VALORANT and League of Legends. The system, introduced to League of Legends in September 2025 and to VALORANT in July 2026, has led to action against 296,416 accounts. Riot says about 9% of accounts playing ranked matches on a given day are sub-accounts, and that more than half of those are harmless.
Riot Games has put numbers on its smurf crackdown. The Vanguard Anti-Boost layer analyzes sudden performance spikes by players other than the account owner, plus unnatural party determinations. Punishments fall by role: boosted users lose points and rewards and face forced demotion plus temporary bans, purchased or unknown-ownership accounts get permanent bans when rank dropping or buying and selling is confirmed, habitual boosters face phased bans on their own main account, and carried companions lose unfairly obtained ranks regardless of intent. Riot's stated reason is protecting the value players put into improving, and it said banning every sub-account would not improve the health of the game.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.