Riot Games is taking a harder stance against unfair play in VALORANT with the release of Patch 13.01. The update introduces a formal system to address rank manipulation, targeting players who abuse the matchmaking system to gain or lose rating in ways that do not reflect their true skill level.

Understanding Rank Manipulation

Riot defines rank manipulation as any behavior that forces a player's rank to deviate from their genuine performance. The studio is specifically targeting three major categories of abuse:

  • Smurfing: Experienced players using low-rank or fresh accounts to dominate weaker lobbies, often to farm easy RR or boost others.
  • Boosting: High-ranked players queueing with, or even logging into, lower-ranked accounts to artificially inflate their standing.
  • Win Trading: Stacks coordinating queues to face each other and intentionally swapping wins and losses to manipulate the leaderboard.

Consequences for Offenders

If you are caught manipulating your rank, you face a tiered set of penalties. These are designed to strip away the benefits of the abuse and remove the offender from the competitive environment:

  • Account Suspensions: Players can be banned for a set duration, with repeat or severe offenders facing permanent bans.
  • Rank Reversions: Illegitimately gained rating will be rolled back, placing the account at a fairer, more accurate rank.
  • Reward Reversions: Ranked-specific cosmetics, such as rank badges and gun buddies, can be removed from an account if they were not earned through legitimate play.

These measures work alongside existing systems like AFK penalties, queue dodging restrictions, and standard cheating bans.

Detection and Reporting

Riot is utilizing long-term matchmaking data and performance metrics to flag suspicious accounts. Much like their approach in League of Legends the system identifies behavior that is inconsistent with a player's assigned MMR.

Players play a key role in this process through the new Rank Manipulation report category. To submit a report:

  1. Open the post-match screen.
  2. Locate the player you suspect of abusing the system.
  3. Include a brief description noting the specific behavior, such as repeated throwing, boosting, or smurf abuse.

Riot has confirmed that players will receive feedback messages when action is taken against accounts they have reported, providing transparency in the process. If you play on your main account and maintain a consistent performance history, you are unlikely to be flagged by these new detection tools.