Riot Games Says It ‘Would Not and Cannot’ Use Vanguard Anti-Cheat to Brick PCs After Rumors Spread

Riot Games has stepped in to squash rumors that it is using its Vanguard anti-cheat to “brick” the PCs of players who get caught cheating in its games.

Rumors that the League of Legends and Valorant developer was bringing a permanent end to cheaters spread late yesterday following an X/Twitter post from the company. In response to a separate post about its anti-cheat efforts, Riot posted an image showing a collection of hardware with the message “congrats to the owners of a brand new $6k paperweight.”

It was a tongue-in-cheek crack at cheaters that rapidly evolved into rumors that the company had the power to render PCs useless. It took Riot less than a day to clear the air, confirming both that it “would not, and cannot, impact your PC’s functionality” and that the paperweights it referred to were hardware used “explicitly for cheating.” To put it plainly, Riot said, “Vanguard does not damage hardware or disable your devices.”

congrats to the owners of a brand new $6k paperweight https://t.co/3rjZVQntrc pic.twitter.com/fS3JC0FL0p

— Riot Games (@riotgames) May 21, 2026

“The photo we posted is a picture of cheat hardware devices that are sold explicitly for cheating in VALORANT (not normal PCs or PC components),” Riot said. “Through our latest updates, Vanguard now makes those devices worthless for VAL, but does not in any way brick PCs or PC components or PC software.

“Our latest update enforces standard platform security features, like the Input-Output Memory Management Unit (IOMMU), on accounts identified as using Direct Memory Access (DMA) cheating devices. These protections are already part of modern systems and when enabled, they block DMA cheat devices (such as those shown in the photo) from accessing memory in downstream applications, like our games.”

Riot continued, explaining that cheaters may run into hardware faults or instability if they continued cheat attempts. It added that “this is expected behavior,” but if IOMMU is disabled, the cheating device should function as normal. Additionally, only those who use DMA-based cheats will be affected by the aforementioned issues.

“This means the cheat device won’t work with our games, but your PC isn’t ‘bricked.’ We would not, and cannot, impact your PC’s functionality in any other fashion,” it continued.

“We’ll keep investing in anti-cheat to protect competitive integrity, and we’ll keep being as transparent as possible about how those systems work.”

The League of Legends company further attempted to dodge controversy with a follow-up post. In it, Riot said that it “didn’t” joke about bricking PCs, only about Valorant cheating devices. It even instructed cheaters on how to fix any paperweight-ing that may have occurred but says that, as long as they are using DMA cheats, they “won’t be able to play our games.”

Riot’s latest attempt to quell fan outcry follows a similar conversation that sprouted up around Vanguard in 2024. At the time, players claimed that the developer was using anti-cheat to brick PCs before the company stepped in to say that it was unable to confirm any reports of bricking taking place.

Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).