Olivia R. August 26, 2020
Another Valorant cheater has been chased out of the game and social media.
A competitive player who goes by "Ryut" was caught using aim lock in the quarterfinals of the TGS Signature Series. While competing for his share of $2,000, the cheater was seen blatantly cheating live on stream, giving the player away immediately.
While guarding the double doors in Haven, Ryut was approached by a Reyna from the opposing team. In response, Ryut quickly turned the corner to ambush her. But in doing so, his aim lock targeted an enemy outside of the door instead of the Reyna he'd intended to confront. Ryut had no vision of the enemy he'd immediately locked onto. It was as obvious a case of cheating as one could see.
Despite using the hack, Ryut didn't even get the kill.
The Valorant community immediately spotted the aim hack and multiple clips of his quarterfinals performance started making their rounds on Twitch and across social media. As the incident became better known throughout the Valorant competitive scene, Ryut deleted his Discord and Twitter accounts.
Ryut was also permanently banned from Valorant after developer Riot Games received multiple reports regarding the cheating incident.
Is Vanguard stopping cheaters in Valorant?
Riot's anti-cheating software, Vanguard, gives cheaters HWID bans. That means that Ryut wouldn't be able to simply create another account. He'd have to buy a completely new computer to get past it.
Two other Valorant pros were recently given HWID bans as well. After being caught cheating in a charity tournament, phox and w3ak announced that they were leaving competitive Valorant indefinitely. The cheaters also deleted their Twitter accounts soon after being called out by the Valorant community, much like Ryut.
Is Vanguard's HWID ban threat strong enough? Some fans are starting to wonder as more and more competitive players get caught cheating in larger tournaments.
During the early days of the relatively new first-person shooter, Vanguard caught over 10,000 players using a variety of hacks. While Vanguard has continued to make cheaters mad by permanently banning them from the game, it seems like there are still players out there willing to risk an HWID ban by using hacks, both casually and in tournament play.
This is a problem that competing FPS Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has continuously battled. Valorant developers may have taken a strong stance against against cheating, but it seems that cheaters are still willing to risk a permaban if it means getting deep in a tournament before being chased off of social media and Valorant servers.