Playing Fair: Anti-boosting and other smurfing countermeasures
TL;DR:
We’re strengthening our efforts against smurfing in Patch 13.01, as we have updated our detection tools to better identify and penalize behavior that undermines ranked integrity, including boosting, win-trading, and stream-sniping. We’re starting with the worst offenders, and will continue to expand the tech from there. Confirmed cases may result in account suspensions, rank/MMR reversions, and rank reward reversions to keep competitive progress tied to fair play.
At Riot Games, we believe the best games are built on true competition.
That’s been our aspiration for VALORANT since Day One: to build a tactical shooter that could support the highest levels of competition. As VALORANT has grown, we’ve seen that aspiration come to life through millions of players grinding Competitive, chasing improvement, and showing us what this game can be at its best.
But with that growth, we’ve also seen the downsides of scale. More players also means more ways for disruptive behavior to show up in-game in ways that hurt the experience for everyone else.
At the end of the day, our belief is pretty simple: everyone should be able to queue up and get into a fun and fair game.
To us, a fun and fair game means every individual player has the best chance to compete, improve, and win based on what happens in that match, so that each player can focus on improving themselves, without disruptive behaviors getting in the way.
Earlier this year, we spelled this out more clearly for all Riot players through the Riot Games Community Pact: Play to Win. Play Fair. Play with Respect. Or go play something else.
Today, we’re talking about that second part: Playing Fair.
What does Playing Fair mean?
Playing Fair means competing with integrity. It means no cheating, no rank manipulation, no win-trading, no match-fixing, and no coordinated behavior that undermines the competitive experience for everyone else in the match.
The reason that matters to us, is because VALORANT is at its best when the focus after every match is: What can I work on as a player? How can I get better? How do I win the next one?
When players manipulate their rank, trade wins, snipe queues, or otherwise compromise competitive integrity, that focus shifts. It’s no longer about your decisions, your mechanics, your comms, or your teamplay. It becomes: Who was in my match? Was this lobby balanced? Did I have a fair shot?
To put it plainly, these disruptive behaviors are NOT acceptable in VALORANT, and if players engage with any of this abuse, we will penalize them. Let’s review the behaviors we’re targeting and what players should expect moving forward.
Boosting
We hear many complaints about smurfing, but the truth is, what people experience and name “smurfing”, is nuanced and made up of a number of different behaviors to manipulate rank. One of these is boosting.
Boosting is a type of smurfing in which a player uses an account that is lower ranked than their own main account to inflate the rank of the account they are on, and/or the accounts in the player’s party.
Here are a few definitions of the sort of behaviors we will be penalizing:
- A booster is the player or service helping create that unfair rank gain. This is often a higher-skilled player playing on someone else’s account, playing in manipulated conditions, or otherwise using their skill or coordination to move another player into a rank they did not earn.
- A boostee is the account receiving the unfair benefit. This could be someone paying for a service, giving access to their account, or knowingly participating in a setup designed to inflate their rank.
- A hitchhiker is a player who queues alongside the boostee to benefit, even if they are not the primary account being boosted
As part of our ongoing fight against smurfing, we are rolling out a new detection today that allows us to precisely target boosters and related behavior. We rolled this out successfully in League of Legends last year, allowing us to separate normal play from coordinated abusive play.
To be clear: this is not about stopping people from playing with their friends. What we are targeting is a pattern of abuse that undermines competitive integrity. If you are playing the game normally and competing to win, queueing with friends remains completely fine.
Win-trading
Win-trading is unacceptable behavior.
Win-trading is a form of cheating where players coordinate to influence the outcome of a match instead of actually competing. That could mean intentionally losing, coordinating with players on the enemy team, or agreeing to trade wins for rank, rewards, status, or any other benefit.
The leaderboard should be a clear reflection of skill. Win-trading denies deserving players of this recognition.
We’ve updated our tooling to identify this behavior with high confidence. With that higher confidence, we’ve penalized more instances of win-trading this year and we will continue to go after offenders.
Stream sniping
Stream sniping is also unacceptable.
Stream sniping is using someone’s live broadcast or content to target, disrupt, manipulate, or gain unfair information in a match.
VALORANT has a thriving creator community, and we want players to be able to stream, watch, and celebrate the game. Using that access to compromise a match crosses the line. We’ve updated tooling to better validate these behaviors, and we will be penalizing accordingly when we confirm abuse.
What penalties should players expect?
When we identify these types of disruption with high confidence, penalties may be applied to any accounts involved, from boosters, to boostees, and hitchhikers. Depending on the severity and repetition of the behavior, this can include:
- Account suspensions
- Rank reversions: RR and MMR are returned to pre-boost status
- Hitchhikers can also have their rank reverted for any rating gained by queuing with a player engaged in rank manipulation
- Reward reversion: reversal of rewards tied to the manipulated rank
- Permanent bans for repeated, severe abuse
We know penalties around ranked integrity need to be handled carefully. That’s why we look for repeated patterns and strong evidence before taking action against this kind of behavior. It’s also very helpful when you report boosters via the Rank Manipulation category in game, as this gives us more data to work with.
We’re also rolling out updated reporter and bystander feedback, so you’ll be hearing directly about the people in your games being penalized for rank manipulation as well.
What counts as normal play?
To be clear, nothing has changed about our policies around how you can play VALORANT– we’ve just upgraded our tooling and want to refresh everyone’s memories. VALORANT is a game experienced at its best with a team of five, and we want you to be able to do so with your friends.
What’s Allowed
- Five-stacking with friends, even if you are all different ranks
- Helping a newer friend learn the game
- Playing on an alternate account that you created and leveled yourself
- Having a bad game (or a bad Act) – going from top-frag in one match to bottom-frag in the next is just part of competitive gaming.
- Going on a streak of really good matches – sometimes you are just dialed in.
- As long as you are playing on your own, unshared account, and you haven't intentionally tanked your rank to get into easier lobbies and are disrupting or manipulating ranks for your own or other’s gains, you are good to go.
What’s Not Allowed
- Sharing an account
- Purchasing an account
- Borrowing an account
- Stealing an account
- Artificially lowering your rank by any means
- Queuing with another player engaged in any of the above
Ultimately, if a match is rigged before the games even begin, it destroys the competitive spirit of VALORANT. Play only on your own accounts.
Going forward
Our standard is simple:
Play to Win. Play Fair. Play with Respect. Or go play something else.
Playing Fair is not just a rule, it’s the foundation for why we play competitive games. Playing a fair game is what makes a win feel earned, a loss feel learnable, and the climb feel worth it.
VALORANT is a competitive game, and we want it to stay that way.
So if you’re here to compete, improve, and climb: we’ll see you online.
If you’re here to ruin the integrity of the game for everyone else: we’ll take action. If you can’t play fair, go play something else.