Riot Games has responded to backlash after boasting that its Vanguard anti-cheat system can effectively “brick” cheating hardware used in games like Valorant.
The controversy started after Riot responded to reports that a recent Vanguard update had disabled a wave of DMA (Direct Memory Access) cheating devices known as Heino 2s.
Riot’s official anti-cheat account posted an image of the devices alongside the caption: “congrats to the owners of a brand new $6k paperweight”.
The devices shown are specialized DMA boards installed to bypass anti-cheat systems. According to posts circulating on X, the latest Vanguard update targeted SATA and NVMe firmware used by many of the devices.
One viral post claimed the update caused DMA firmware to become unusable even after Vanguard was uninstalled, alleging that the only fix was a full operating system reinstall.
“VGK suddenly triggered an IOMMU (input-output memory management unit) restart warning in-game, after which the DMA firmware becomes completely unusable,” anti-cheat reporter ogisadaDMA said. “Even without the game running or after uninstalling Vanguard. Only fix is a full OS reinstall.”
Riot’s anti-cheat analyst GamerDoc also posted, “All that DMA gear just to get blocked by a pop up box is crazy 6k bricks all over the floor.”
Players divided over Riot’s clampdown on DMA cheating
It’s claimed that Vanguard now damages the firmware of Heino 2 devices upon detection, though some users said the hardware can still technically be repaired before being detected again by Riot’s anti-cheat system.
The situation quickly sparked debate online, with some players praising Riot’s aggressive stance against cheating while others argued that intentionally disabling hardware crosses a line.
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“I understand the severity of hacking, but bricking a users hardware should be illegal,” one viral post said.
Another replied to Riot: “congrats to the soon-to-be owners of a brand new class action.”
However, others have argued that what Riot is doing is perfectly legal – engineer Daax explains, “You’re not going to suddenly have things on your PC stop working. The DMA device will stop working until you remove it. It will operate normally if you put it on a PC that doesn’t have the block.”
DMA cheating hardware has become increasingly common in competitive PC games in recent years because the devices can bypass kernel-level anti-cheat. Riot has repeatedly promoted Vanguard as one of the industry’s most aggressive kernel-level anti-cheat systems, particularly within Valorant.
Riot Games responds to backlash
Following the backlash, Riot Games issued a lengthy statement denying claims that Vanguard was physically damaging players’ PCs or permanently disabling hardware.
“There’s been a wave of claims by cheaters about Vanguard ‘bricking’ their PCs, so let’s clear that up: Vanguard does not damage hardware or disable your devices,” Riot wrote in a post on X.
The company explained that the recent update targets DMA cheating hardware by enforcing standard platform security protections, specifically IOMMU (Input-Output Memory Management Unit), which blocks DMA devices from accessing protected memory in games like Valorant.
According to Riot, systems attempting to use DMA cheat devices may experience “hardware faults or instability” when those protections are enabled, but the company stressed that this is expected behavior tied to the security feature itself and not Vanguard intentionally damaging PCs.
“Disabling IOMMU allows the cheat device to function again, but IOMMU will still be required to play our games,” Riot added. “This means the cheat device won’t work with our games, but your PC isn’t ‘bricked.’”
Does Vanguard physically damage hardware?
No.Does this impact hardware or software in any ways unrelated to Riot’s games?
No. The IOMMU security protection does not impact hardware, and would only impact the ability of players using DMA cheat devices to play our games.Are…
— Riot Games (@riotgames) May 22, 2026
Riot later followed up with a FAQ-style post directly addressing accusations that Vanguard physically damages hardware.
“Does Vanguard physically damage hardware? No,” the company stated. “Players not using DMA cheat hardware are unaffected.”
The developer also clarified that the earlier “$6k paperweight” joke was referring to cheat devices no longer functioning in Valorant rather than permanently destroyed hardware.
“We didn’t,” Riot said when asked why it joked about “bricking” PCs. “The ‘paperweight’ comment was about VALORANT cheat devices that no longer work in VALORANT. No hardware is being damaged and no other functionalities are impacted.”