Riot Mobile Verification Beta

We’ll soon be requiring certain accounts to activate MFA through Riot Mobile.
Game Updates
Ashley Tsao

As part of our ongoing efforts to reduce smurfing, we’re requiring certain accounts to activate Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) through Riot Mobile. To start, this will first launch in beta across NA, LATAM, BR, and KR.

Additionally, starting in patch 11.09, we will be issuing bans to accounts we are confident have been purchased and are detected for boosting.

Going forward, we’re going to be discussing a few hot topics with the community that are quite loaded as terms. Let’s take a moment together to define the terms we’ll be referencing often around this topic.

  • Alternate Account
    • Any account played by someone who already owns another account.
  • Shared Account
    • Any account in which the owner deliberately shared its account credentials to be played by someone who is not the owner of the account.
  • Smurfing
    • Any account that has a pattern of deliberate deception of our matchmaker to be placed into matches below a player’s true skill level.
  • Boosting
    • Boosting is a type of smurfing in which a player uses an account that is lower ranked than their own account (booster) to inflate the rank of the account used and the accounts in the player’s party.

Why are we doing this?

We’ve heard you. Playing against smurfs is one of the most frustrating experiences in VALORANT, and a sizable amount of this disruption comes from shared accounts. By decreasing the number of accounts that can be shared, we expect smurfing to decrease. As a reminder, sharing accounts has always been against our Terms of Service.

This won’t solve the problem entirely, but we do expect this to make a meaningful dent to the number of accounts used to smurf. Additionally, condensing bad behavior on fewer accounts should make it easier to detect players who are smurfing. There's never been a better time to tell your boyfriend, sister, or grandfather to make their own account, it's free!

80-90% of stolen accounts have MFA disabled. Activating MFA will only strengthen your account security so we encourage you to hop on board sooner rather than later!

Who will be required to activate Riot Mobile MFA?

  • If your account is detected as a shared account
    • Our detection looks at a few signals to determine if we suspect different humans are playing on the same account.
  • If your account is Ascendant or above (Immortal, Radiant) starting as early as patch 11.10

Who is NOT affected by these requirements?

  • If you are not sharing your account with any other player, your experience should not be any different than it is today – you will not be asked to complete any additional verification, though MFA is still a great way to protect your account.
  • Even if you own multiple accounts, as long as you are not sharing any of them, these requirements shouldn’t affect you.

Why Ascendant+?

  • Our highest ranked players are capable of inflicting the greatest harm when smurfing
  • Our highest ranked players are at risk of more competitive integrity violations as an outcome to sharing accounts – i.e. win trading

What will I have to do?

If your account is flagged as a shared account, you’ll be required to install Riot Mobile and complete a one-time verification process. This step links your mobile device to your Riot account to help ensure it’s being used securely and as intended. For more information on the setup process, you can go here. Completing this one-time verification also activates Riot Mobile as an MFA option – which has other benefits of keeping your account more secure! Don’t forget the free rewards as well!

Upcoming Updates

  • Patch 11.08
    • You’ll be able to report another player for ‘Rank Manipulation’ through the in-game reporting system. This will help us collect more data that will better inform our systems, so don’t forget to report!
  • Patch 11.09
    • Riot Mobile MFA is required for shared accounts in NA, LATAM, BR, and KR.
    • We’ll start issuing bans to accounts we are confident have been purchased and are detected for boosting.
  • Patch 11.10
    • Riot Mobile MFA is required for Ascendant+ accounts in NA, LATAM, BR, and KR.
  • 2026
    • Riot Mobile MFA is required for shared accounts and Ascendant+ in AP and EU.

We’ll be evaluating smurfing reports (coming in patch 11.08) data to beef up our detections to extend beyond purchased accounts used for boosting. Although we are confident we can reliably detect patterns of boosting, we are relying on PLAYERS to identify patterns for the other types of smurfing.

What’s next?

As mentioned, the MFA requirement is a beta release, and we’re still exploring how this feature will evolve. Based on your feedback, we may adjust how MFA functions or is presented moving forward. We’d love to hear your honest thoughts, whether it’s:

  • Concerns about being falsely detected as a shared account
  • Issues with completing Riot Mobile verification
  • Or anything else that affects your experience

Feel free to reach out to PS with any of the concerns above. After we collect feedback from our players in the beta, we plan to roll out MFA globally and potentially extend these requirements to more players to protect competitive integrity. We’ll let you know when that time comes!