Riot Sparks Legal Debate After Vanguard Bricks Expensive DMA Cheat Cards

Riot Games has escalated its war against hardware-based cheating in Valorant. The company’s latest Vanguard anti-cheat update reportedly detects and blocks external DMA PCIe cheat cards, including the expensive Heino 2.0 hardware used by some cheat sellers and players.

Riot openly mocked affected cheat users, describing the Heino 2.0 as a “$6k paperweight” after the update rolled out. The company also shared an image of PCIe spoofing hardware as part of its public anti-cheat callout.

Riot Targets DMA Hardware Cheats

DMA, short for Direct Memory Access, cheating hardware works differently from traditional cheat software. Instead of running directly on the gaming PC, the PCIe hardware intercepts and reads system memory externally.

This approach allowed cheat developers to create advanced tools such as wallhacks, trigger bots, macros, and pixel-based aiming systems while avoiding many standard anti-cheat checks. Because the hardware operates outside normal software paths, DMA cheating became one of the most difficult forms of cheating to stop.

The Heino 2.0 DMA card reportedly costs around $5,900, making it one of the more expensive cheating solutions on the market.

How Vanguard Blocks the Hardware

According to Riot, Vanguard now uses IOMMU restrictions to interfere with DMA-based cheating methods. IOMMU technology controls how hardware devices interact with system memory.

The new restrictions reportedly stop cheat firmware from properly reading or writing memory, effectively preventing the DMA hardware from functioning as intended while Valorant is running.

Riot has spent months strengthening its anti-cheat protections against hardware-level exploits. Back in December 2025, the company worked with motherboard vendors including ASUS, MSI, and ASRock to close firmware loopholes that DMA devices could abuse before the operating system fully loaded.

Controversy Around the Update

The update has already sparked debate in gaming and anti-cheat communities. Some users claim the Vanguard changes can leave DMA firmware unusable even after Valorant or Vanguard closes.

Anti-cheat reporter ogisdaDMA claimed some affected users may even need to reinstall Windows after using the blocked hardware.

Critics argue that intentionally “bricking” hardware, even if it is designed for cheating, could raise legal and ethical questions. Others believe Riot remains within legal boundaries because the hardware should still function normally on systems without Vanguard protections enabled.

Software engineer Daax argued that legitimate PC hardware should continue working as expected and claimed the blocked DMA devices should operate again if installed in another unrestricted PC.

Riot Continues Expanding Vanguard

Riot has steadily expanded Vanguard’s hardware-level protections as cheat developers move beyond traditional software exploits. Hardware DMA cheating has become increasingly popular in competitive shooters because it is harder to detect and often marketed as “undetectable.”

The latest Valorant update shows Riot is willing to aggressively target even expensive external hardware solutions in its ongoing anti-cheat push.

In other gaming news, Rocket League is preparing for its move to Unreal Engine 6, XBOX is getting more than 30 new games this week, and Microsoft recently updated XBOX playtime tracking to show total hours instead of days.

Via Notebook Check