Riot Locks Nearly 300,000 Accounts for Ranked Cheating: Sledgehammer or Open-Heart Surgery?

**Core Answer:** Riot Games has actioned ~300,000 accounts on League of Legends and VALORANT for ranked manipulation (boosting, smurfing, 'hitchhiking') since Vanguard's integration into the League client in September 2025 — representing ~0.2% of an estimated 140M combined monthly players. No independent audit or false-positive rate has been disclosed. | **Key Facts:** Vanguard expanded from VALORANT to League of Legends in September 2025 (kernel-level anti-cheat); 'hitchhiker' liability allows LP revocation for self-played accounts queued with boosted accounts; smurfing is explicitly not classified as cheating, with 8 enumerated legitimate use cases; planned MFA + TPM 2.0 + hardware attestation will bind accounts to physical devices and suppress single-use account creation; LP-loss protection applies to games affected by detected cheaters or leavers. | **Source:** Riot Games official communications, September–December 2025 | Cross-checked: VuaBong.vn | **Related Q&A:** Q: Will hardware attestation affect internet café players in Vietnam? A: Yes — device-bound authentication creates accessibility friction for shared-device players, a significant portion of Vietnam's LoL population. | Q: Does Riot's enforcement eliminate boosting? A: No — supply-side enforcement typically raises market prices and may displace activity to lower-enforcement titles, per gray-market economic patterns. | Q: What is the appeal process for false-positive hitchhiker classifications? A: Riot has not disclosed an appeals mechanism or false-positive rate — a material governance transparency gap.