Rank 65 Radiant Solista Banned from Valorant

Valorant and its anti-cheat program, Vanguard, have been very diligent in eliminating cheaters that hope to abuse Valorant’s security. However, some cheaters slip in between the cracks, and Solista is a primary example of this phenomenon. Solista was banned from playing Valorant but only after achieving the coveted title of Radiant, which is comprised of the top-ranking players in the game. Although this is an example of RIOT’s Vanguard doing its job correctly, this incident brings up more questions regarding the ranked ladder’s competitive integrity.

The Proof

The first link here shows the actual banning of Solista by RIOT’s software. Before the spike is about to explode, the players are ejected from the game, and Vanguard’s cheater warning message pops up before notifying that Solista is banned. One can logically infer that this is one of the more egregious offenses to commit, resulting in a hardware IP ban, which is difficult to circumvent without some expertise in the software industry, a few hundred dollars for specialized programs, or buying a new setup.

This second link is very damning proof that Solista has indeed cheated. While attacking the A-side of Split, one can see that Solista is currently equipped with a Guardian. While Solista fires the first shot at Raze in heaven, we can see that he presses a button on his mouse. However, after looking away from heaven and focusing on Reyna in long A, the cursor correctly goes to Reyna’s head and fires again without Solista pressing anything on his mouse. He then re-peeks Raze to line up another headshot, but the mouse click and shot fired did not sync up, after which Solista immediately moves the mouse away from the camera.

The Aftermath

After this incident, Solista took to Twitter to announce that he plays Valorant by using his space bar as his fire button. This incident sparked a lot of controversies, but for the time being, RIOT is standing firm on their banning of the former Radiant.

Former Cloud9 CS:GO star Shroud has even chimed in before, acknowledging that Solista would go pro or get banned. Even more recently, TenZ harshly critiqued RIOT’s handling of the ranked ladder, citing that most professionals only climb when streaming and staying at Immortal is satisfactory.