Riot Games deployed Vanguard, an anti-cheat system used in VALORANT and League of Legends, which uses machine learning to detect abnormal player behaviors such as aiming anomalies, suspicious movement patterns, and unauthorized software, and can issue automated bans.

Vanguard operates as a kernel-level system that monitors gameplay in real time and analyzes player input patterns and in-game behavior to detect cheating software. Riot's anti-cheat team, led by Phillip Koskinas, has publicly described using behavioral analytics alongside traditional rule-based detection to identify cheaters. Reported bans from Vanguard include over 3.6 million Valorant accounts over four years. The system runs continuously in the background even when the game is not active.