A German-language Reddit user known as After-Cartoonist-196 has claimed that purchasing a used Central Processing Unit resulted in inheriting the previous owner’s Valorant hardware ban, prompting a public rebuttal from Riot Games’ anticheat lead who says such bans cannot spread between components and last no longer than four months.
The controversy began when After-Cartoonist-196 posted on the German-language PCBaumeister subreddit that they had bought a CPU secondhand, only to discover it carried the prior owner’s ban. According to the user, Riot support informed them that the punishment was now tied to all of their other PC components and could not be lifted, effectively locking them out of the game regardless of which parts they owned.
The original claim
After-Cartoonist-196 stated that they purchased the CPU on September 21, and that the original owner’s ban had been logged on August 12. The user alleged that Riot support told them the ban was now associated with every component in their system, leaving no path to recovery.
The post was reported on by PC Gamer and spread independently across social media platforms, drawing significant attention to the increasingly invasive nature of modern anticheat systems used in competitive esports titles.
Riot’s response
Phillip Koskinas, Riot Games’ anticheat head, publicly disputed several aspects of the story. On Twitter, he said he was verifying After-Cartoonist-196’s details and described the overall account as “pretty unlikely.” Koskinas emphasized that Riot hardware bans carry a four-month maximum duration, noting that Riot support is required to provide the remaining ban time whenever responding to a customer ticket.
Riot hardware bans have a four month maximum duration, and cannot “infect” other components when inserted into a new system. Support must state the remaining duration of any ban in their responses.
Phillip Koskinas, Riot Games anticheat head
Koskinas firmly debunked one central element of the claim: he denied, across two separate posts, that a system’s other hardware gets blacklisted when detected alongside a banned component. This directly contradicts the user’s assertion that their entire PC had been flagged.
A lingering ban
Despite debunking the “infection” claim, much of the original story remains plausible. If the ban truly began on August 12, it would not reach its four-month duration limit until mid-December—meaning a buyer could still find themselves locked out during that window.
We reached out to After-Cartoonist-196 after the PC World article was published but before Koskinas’ public response. The core of the story—that this player inherited another’s hardware ban—still seems plausible, even if not as drastic as initially presented. Regardless of duration, being locked out of a favorite game in such a manner would represent an aggravating and Kafkaesque ordeal.
Assuming the original Reddit account is fully truthful, one theory is that a shoddy support response led to miscommunication about the system ban. Whatever Riot’s official policy may be, it operates as a large company with many divisions and external contractors, which could explain discrepancies between what players are told and how bans actually function.
Looking ahead
The incident continues to fuel debate over the invasiveness of today’s most advanced anticheat measures. Kernel-level anticheat systems like those used in competitive esports titles have drawn criticism for their deep access to system hardware, even as developers argue they remain necessary to combat cheating.
Riot has not issued a formal statement beyond Koskinas’ public responses, and it remains unclear whether After-Cartoonist-196 will receive any resolution. The story serves as a stark reminder of the trade-offs players face when engaging with heavily monitored competitive games, where hardware-level enforcement can carry consequences that outlast ownership of individual components.
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