Former VALORANT pro ardiis has called out Riot Games’ anti-cheat chief Phillip Koskinas, accusing him of spending too much time defending his work online while cheaters and wintraders spoil ranked matches.
The exchange got heated after Koskinas challenged ardiis’s claim that 60% of his games featured hackers or wintraders. However, in a follow-up response, the Riot developer also acknowledged that cheating attempts were at an all-time high.
In brief:
- ardiis claimed hackers or wintraders appeared in 60% of his games and warned about VALORANT’s future.
- Koskinas disputed that figure using reports from 23 ranked matches on one account.
- ardiis pushed back, accusing Riot’s anti-cheat chief of prioritizing online arguments over fixing the problem.
- Koskinas said Riot was banning almost three cheaters per minute and rebuilding its defenses against evolving threats.
ardiis Criticizes VALORANT’s Anti-Cheat Response
The argument started with an October 13 post in which ardiis warned that VALORANT’s player count and viewership could suffer if Riot failed to address cheating within six months. He claimed that 60% of his games had involved hackers or wintraders.
After Koskinas questioned his numbers, ardiis doubled down. In the exchange shown in the supplied screenshot, he urged Riot to ask Radiant players how often they encounter cheaters compared with previous years.
“Your anti-cheat’s been cracked,” ardiis wrote, before accusing Koskinas of being too busy defending his job online to deal with the issue.
The exchange itself doesn’t establish that Riot’s anti-cheat team has neglected its work.
Riot Challenges ardiis’s 60% Cheating Claim
Koskinas initially responded by reviewing the account haze der yeno#daa. According to his reply, ardiis had played 23 ranked matches on that account over the previous 30 days and reported three instances of cheating.
Koskinas said one report was accurate, with the identified player and their duo banned for radar cheating. He put the resulting figure at 4.3% of games.
Those figures need context. ardiis’s claim included both hackers and wintraders, while Koskinas’s response described confirmed cheating from reports on a specific account. So, obviously, that review alone cannot establish how much cheating or wintrading exists across VALORANT’s ranked population.
Riot Says Cheating Attempts Are at an All-Time High
In his follow-up response, visible in the supplied screenshot, Koskinas acknowledged that cheating attempts had reached an all-time high. He also said Riot was banning almost three cheaters per minute.
He described the team as rebuilding almost its entire anti-cheat product to address this class of threat, acknowledging problems with its preventative defenses.
Koskinas also reviewed individual accusations, identifying some players as banned, clearing others of cheating, and referring one inconclusive case to the team.
