A German Valorant player who bought a secondhand CPU claims the hardware inherited a Valorant hardware ban from its previous owner. Riot Games’ anticheat director Phillip Koskinas disputed several details of the story, though he did not flatly deny that the player was affected by a hardware restriction.
What The Player Claimed
Reddit user After-Cartoonist-196 posted on the German-language PCBaumeister subreddit that they purchased a used Ryzen 7 5800X3D CPU on Sept. 21, but according to Dexerto, the game booted them immediately upon launch. Riot support allegedly told them the CPU’s serial number was blacklisted due to a hardware ban logged on Aug. 12 by the chip’s previous owner, who had cheated.
The player also claimed support said their motherboard and storage drive were now flagged as well, and that nothing could be done to reverse the restriction.
Riot’s Response
According to PC Gamer, Koskinas said on X that he could not find a support ticket matching the player’s account details, calling the story “pretty unlikely.” He stated that Riot hardware bans last four months at most, apply only to the game where cheating occurred, and require support to inform players of the ban’s remaining duration.
Koskinas firmly denied one claim: that Vanguard blacklists other PC components when it detects a banned part. He posted twice on X that this simply does not happen. If the original ban date of Aug. 12 is accurate, he noted, the restriction would not expire until mid-December, but that does not mean the motherboard or storage drive would be flagged.
What Remains Unclear
Koskinas could not verify the support ticket, which leaves open the possibility of a miscommunication or poor support response rather than a hardware infection across all components. The core claim, that a used CPU carried a Valorant hardware ban to a new system, remains unresolved, though the company’s ban policies as stated by Koskinas would theoretically allow it to happen for up to four months.
A secondhand buyer has no way to check whether a CPU carries a Vanguard ban before purchase, a gap that could affect future used-hardware transactions.
Reporting from Dexerto and PC Gamer contributed to this story.
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