Riot punishes nearly 300,000 accounts for rank manipulation in LoL and Valorant

Riot Games has put its foot down in its two biggest competitive games. As reported by Dexerto, the company has confirmed close to 300,000 penalties for rank manipulation spread across League of Legends and Valorant. And most importantly: Riot itself makes it clear that this is not the end point, but just one more phase of an enforcement campaign that is still active.

The figure matters because it puts a number on a problem that anyone who grinds ranked knows all too well: matches where someone plays far above their rank, accounts that look bought, or suspicious losing streaks that just don't add up. Each of those situations breaks the basic promise of a ranking system, which is to honestly measure how good you are. Riot talking about nearly 300,000 punishments gives a sense of the true scale of the issue.

What you need to know

• Riot has confirmed close to 300,000 penalties for rank manipulation, according to Dexerto.
• The penalties affect players in League of Legends and Valorant, the company's two flagship competitive titles.
• The common reason is rank manipulation, meaning artificially altering an account's position in the ranked system.
• Riot warns that enforcement is not over: there will be more penalties as the campaign progresses.
• The source does not detail how the figures are split between the two games or the specific type of punishment applied in each case.

What rank manipulation is and why it is a problem

The umbrella of rank manipulation covers several practices that, while different, have the same effect: falsifying the ladder. The best known are boosting (a high-level player plays on someone else's account to raise it), win trading (groups of players agree on who wins in order to inflate accounts) and alternate accounts used to deliberately drop in rank and stomp weaker opponents. On top of that comes the market for buying and selling already-ranked accounts, which fuels all of the above.

The damage is not only done to the system. It is done to the honest player who ends up in a match with someone who shouldn't be there, whether above or below their level. In a tactical shooter like Valorant, a single person out of their bracket decides entire rounds. In League of Legends, a lane lost artificially condemns four teammates who did nothing wrong. That is why the community has been calling for a firm hand for a long time.

A campaign that remains open

The most relevant nuance of the news is that Riot presents these nearly 300,000 penalties as a partial tally. The company states that enforcement is ongoing, which suggests it has detection tools that are still processing accounts and that there will be new waves. For anyone tempted to turn to a boosting service, the message is direct: the window of impunity is closing.

It is worth highlighting what the source does not say. There is no breakdown by game, by region or by type of offense, and no detail on whether the penalties are temporary suspensions, permanent bans or rank resets. Nor is there a timeline for the next phases. These are details the competitive community will miss and which, we hope, Riot will clarify over time.

Our take

Here at the Underworld Lordz newsroom we applaud the move, but with caveats. Nearly 300,000 penalties is a powerful figure and proves the problem was not an exaggeration by frustrated players. However, such a large number also shows that for a long time the system allowed this to grow to industrial proportions. Punishing is necessary; preventing would have been better. The mechanics that make buying rank attractive, such as season rewards tied exclusively to the tier reached, are still there and will keep generating demand.

For competitive players and aspiring pros, this cleanup is good news with fine print. A more honest ladder means your rank has real value again when a team or a scout looks at it. But there is also a risk of false positives: innocently shared accounts, coaches reviewing matches from a student's account, or players who climb quickly on their own merit could get caught by automated systems. We demand that Riot's appeal processes be fast and transparent, because an unfair penalty against someone who is betting everything on ranked is serious harm.

For content creators the matter is even more delicate. Many have normalized so-called unranked to radiant runs or fresh-account challenges that, in practice, are smurfing on camera. If Riot wants to be consistent, it will have to apply the same rules to those with an audience as to those without one. And creators, for their part, should think twice about the example they set for a community that then suffers those same practices in their own matches.

What do you think?

Nearly 300,000 penalties sounds like a lot, but the underlying question is whether you will really notice the difference the next time you queue up for ranked. Do you think Riot is attacking the problem at its root, or just cleaning the surface while boosting remains a business? Tell us in the team chat or on our Discord.