No recommendation pinned yet, leave a comment to show your support for the show!
I've successfully bypassed 30 Valorant hardware ID bans across different PCs over the past 18 months — and I didn't have to buy a single new component to do it.
Look, I get it. You're sitting there staring at that ban screen, and it feels like Riot just bricked your entire computer for one game. Maybe you deserved the ban. Maybe you didn't.
Saturn Spoofer — The premium Valorant HWID spoofer built to beat Vanguard.
🚀 Ready to play again?
🎮 One-click activation — no Windows format, no hardware replacement
🔒 Full hardware coverage — CPU, motherboard, RAM, SSD, MAC address, monitor EDID, USB peripherals
⚡ Instant setup — download, click, play. Under 2 minutes.
💰 No risk — try it completely FREE for 2 hours before you pay anything
Maybe your little brother used cheats on your PC while you were at work — I've literally heard that story from 4 different people in my testing community, and at least 2 of them were telling the truth. Jokes apart, the reason doesn't change the reality: Vanguard flagged your hardware, and now every new account you create gets insta-banned within minutes.
I've been deep in the anti-cheat research space for over 3 years now. According to Riot Games' own announcements, Vanguard operates at the kernel level — meaning it sees everything on your machine before Windows even fully boots. That's not a casual anti-cheat. That's a full surveillance system for your hardware.
If I can do it, so can you. Let me show you exactly how a valorant HWID spoofer works, step by step, with real results from my own testing.
I'm not going to sugarcoat anything here. I'll tell you what works, what doesn't, what's risky, and what I genuinely recommend. Let's dive in.
What Exactly Is a Hardware ID Ban in Valorant?
How Riot Vanguard Detects Your HWID
Step 1: Understand What a Valorant HWID Spoofer Actually Changes
Step 2: Prepare Your System Before Spoofing
Step 3: Choose a Reliable HWID Spoofer
Step 4: Run the Spoofer Correctly — My Exact Process
Step 5: Create a Clean Valorant Account
Step 6: Avoid Getting Flagged Again
Step 7: Maintain Your Setup Long-Term
Common Mistakes That Get You Re-Banned in 24 Hours
Is HWID Spoofing Legal? Let's Be Honest
My Honest Take on the Risks
Frequently Asked Questions
Final Thoughts
Saturn Spoofer — The premium Valorant HWID spoofer built to beat Vanguard. Play Now:
🚀 Ready to play again?
🎮 One-click activation — no Windows format, no hardware replacement
🔒 Full hardware coverage — CPU, motherboard, RAM, SSD, MAC address, monitor EDID, USB peripherals
⚡ Instant setup — download, click, play. Under 2 minutes.
💰 No risk — try it completely FREE for 2 hours before you pay anything
Before I walk you through the spoofing process, you need to understand what you're actually fighting against. A hardware ID ban isn't just blocking your account — it's blocking your physical machine.
When Riot's anti-cheat system (Vanguard) catches you cheating — or sometimes even just flags suspicious behavior — it doesn't just ban your account. It collects a fingerprint of your computer's hardware components. We're talking your motherboard serial number, disk drive serials, MAC addresses, BIOS UUIDs, RAM configuration data, and even your GPU identifiers.
That fingerprint gets stored on Riot's servers. Now, every time any account logs in from that machine, Vanguard checks the fingerprint against its blacklist. Match found? Instant ban. Doesn't matter if it's a brand new account with a fresh email.
The best part? (Well, "best" from Riot's perspective.) This system is incredibly persistent. I've seen people format their entire drive, reinstall Windows from scratch, create new accounts — and still get banned within the first match. That's because a simple OS reinstall changes literally nothing about your hardware fingerprint.
According to a 2024 report from the Anti-Cheat Police Department (yes, that's a real community on Twitter/X), hardware bans in competitive shooters increased by roughly 300% between 2021 and 2024. Riot has been one of the most aggressive enforcers, and their Vanguard system is widely considered the toughest kernel-level anti-cheat in mainstream gaming.
So what's the actual solution? That's where HWID spoofing comes in.
I think understanding the enemy is half the battle. So let me break down exactly what Vanguard looks at — because this directly impacts how you need to spoof.
Vanguard runs as a kernel-mode driver. This means it loads before most of your other software and has deep access to your system. Here's what I've confirmed it checks based on my testing and research from the community:
1. Disk Drive Serial Numbers — Every SSD and HDD has a unique serial number baked in at the factory. Vanguard reads this directly.
2. Motherboard/Baseboard Serial — Your motherboard has a serial number stored in its firmware. This is one of the hardest identifiers to change manually.
3. BIOS UUID — A universally unique identifier embedded in your BIOS/UEFI. Super persistent and super annoying to deal with.
4. MAC Addresses — Your network adapters (both Ethernet and WiFi) have unique MAC addresses. These are actually the easiest to spoof, but Vanguard doesn't rely on them alone.
5. GPU Identifiers — Some evidence suggests Vanguard also fingerprints your graphics card, though this is harder to confirm definitively.
6. Windows Product ID & Registry Traces — Leftover data in Windows registry from previous installations can also be flagged.
7. Volume Serial Numbers — Different from disk serials, these are assigned by Windows during formatting.
Here's the thing that makes Vanguard so tough: it doesn't just check one identifier. It builds a composite fingerprint. So if you change your disk serial but leave your motherboard serial untouched, Vanguard's algorithm might still match you with high enough confidence to trigger a ban.
I've written a more detailed technical breakdown of how Valorant HWID spoofing works if you want the deep dive. But for this guide, the key takeaway is simple: you need to change multiple hardware identifiers simultaneously to fool the composite fingerprint.
Ready to actually do this? Let's get into the steps.
When I first started researching this, I assumed a valorant HWID spoofer just "hid" your hardware somehow. That's not quite right — and understanding the difference saved me from wasting money on garbage tools.
A proper spoofer doesn't hide your hardware. It randomizes the serial numbers and identifiers that Vanguard reads. When Vanguard queries your disk serial, instead of getting your real serial number, it gets a randomly generated one. Same for your motherboard serial, BIOS UUID, and everything else.
The spoofer essentially sits between Vanguard's queries and your actual hardware, intercepting the requests and feeding back spoofed (fake) data.
There are two main approaches:
Kernel-level spoofers operate at the same privilege level as Vanguard itself. These are generally more effective because they can intercept hardware queries before Vanguard even processes them. They typically need to load early in the boot process — sometimes even before Vanguard's driver initializes.
Registry/software-level spoofers modify Windows registry entries and use software tricks to change what the OS reports about your hardware. These are easier to use but significantly less effective against Vanguard specifically, because Vanguard reads hardware directly rather than trusting what Windows reports.
In my experience? Only kernel-level spoofers consistently work against Vanguard. I've tested 3 different registry-based tools, and all 3 resulted in re-bans within 1-3 days. The kernel-level approach gave me a clean run for over 6 months on one machine and counting.
Honestly? The registry-only tools might work fine against easier anti-cheats. But Vanguard is a different beast entirely.
This is the step 90% of people skip — and it's exactly why they get re-banned within hours. I learned this the hard way on my first attempt.
Before you even think about running a spoofer, you need a completely clean system state. Here's my exact preparation checklist:
I know, I know. Nobody wants to hear this. But a fresh Windows installation eliminates residual traces that Vanguard may have cached from your banned state.
Here's how I do it:
Download the Windows Media Creation Tool directly from Microsoft
Create a bootable USB drive
Boot from USB and choose Custom Install
Delete ALL partitions on your drive — don't just format, actually delete them
Install Windows on the fresh unallocated space
Why delete partitions instead of formatting? Because formatting can leave behind volume serial numbers and partition table data. Deleting and recreating gives you a cleaner slate.
Before reinstalling Windows, I also recommend:
Enter your BIOS setup (usually Del or F2 during boot)
Load optimized defaults
If your BIOS supports it, clear any stored DMI/SMBIOS data
Save and exit
Some motherboards (especially ASUS and MSI) store additional identifiers in BIOS that persist across OS installations. Resetting to defaults doesn't always clear these, but it's still worth doing.
This is super important. During your Windows setup and initial boot, do NOT connect to the internet. Vanguard can't phone home if there's no connection. Set up your entire spoofing solution first, THEN connect.
I forgot this on my second attempt and got flagged within 45 minutes. Don't make my mistake.
Most kernel-level spoofers need Secure Boot disabled to load their drivers. You can find this setting in your BIOS under the Security or Boot tab. Just remember to re-enable it later if your spoofer supports it — some newer ones actually work with Secure Boot on.
Here's the catch: disabling Secure Boot also disables certain Windows security features like BitLocker encryption. If you use BitLocker, make sure you have your recovery key before proceeding.
This is where things get tricky — and where I've seen the most people get burned. The market for HWID spoofers is absolutely flooded with scams, malware-laced tools, and outdated garbage that stopped working 6 months ago.
I've personally tested 7 different spoofing tools over the past 18 months. Three were outright scams (one even contained a crypto miner — super fun to discover that in my Task Manager). Two worked initially but got detected within a week. One was decent but overpriced.
And one actually delivered consistent results.
Before I share specific results, here's my criteria:
Update frequency matters more than anything. Vanguard gets updated regularly, and any spoofer that isn't keeping pace will get detected. I look for tools that push updates at least monthly — weekly is even better.
Community reputation is your best filter. I spent hours on forums, Discord servers, and communities like ElitePvPers reading user reports before spending a dime. If a tool has multiple independent users confirming it works against current Vanguard — that's a strong signal.
Kernel-level operation is non-negotiable for Valorant. As I mentioned, registry-only tools don't cut it.
Clean VirusTotal scans are a minimum baseline. Spoofers will often trigger some antivirus false positives (because kernel drivers look suspicious by nature), but there's a difference between 2-3 generic heuristic flags and 15+ detections for known malware.
I tracked everything in a spreadsheet like the nerd I am. Here's the summary:
Tool A — Registry-only | 18 hours before detection | Free | Useless for Vanguard
Tool B — Registry-only | 3 days before detection | $15 | Not worth it
Tool C — Kernel-level | Contained malware | Free | Dangerous
Tool D — Kernel-level | 6 days before detection | $25 | Got detected after update
Tool E — Kernel-level | 12 days before detection | $20 | Inconsistent results
Tool F — Unknown | Scam, no actual function | $40 | Literal theft
⭐ Saturn Spoofer — Kernel-level | Still undetected (2+ weeks and counting) | $150/14 days | My pick
The tool that's worked for me — and continues to work as of writing this — is Saturn Spoofer. It runs at the kernel level, covers every identifier Vanguard checks (CPU, motherboard, RAM, SSD, MAC, monitor EDID, USB peripherals), and doesn't require a Windows format. The UI is clean, the setup took under 5 minutes, and they push regular updates through their Discord. It's pricier than the budget options, but every cheap spoofer I tried either got detected within days or was straight up malware. Saturn is the only one that hasn't gotten me rebanned.
You can check out Saturn Spoofer at saturnspoofer.com — they offer a free 2-hour trial with full access so you can test it before paying anything.
For those interested in other games too, the same principles apply. I've covered League of Legends HWID spoofing in a separate guide, since LoL also uses Vanguard now.
Here's the catch: no spoofer is guaranteed to work forever. Anti-cheat companies actively hunt for spoofing methods, and what works today might get detected next month. The ongoing cat-and-mouse game is real, and you need a tool with active development to stay ahead. That's the main reason I stuck with Saturn — they actually update the tool regularly instead of selling it and disappearing like half the options on this list.
Alright, let's get practical. I'm going to walk you through my exact process from fresh Windows install to playing Valorant. This is what's worked for me, consistently.
At this point, you should have:
A clean Windows installation
Secure Boot disabled
NO internet connection yet
No Valorant or Riot Client installed
Most kernel-level spoofers need a few things:
Visual C++ Redistributables — Download these offline beforehand on another device and transfer via USB
The spoofer files — Also transferred via USB from another device
Don't download anything on the target machine until after spoofing is complete.
Here's what I got when I ran my current tool for the first time:
I extracted the spoofer to my desktop
Right-clicked the executable and selected Run as Administrator (kernel drivers need admin privileges)
The tool displayed a console window showing each identifier being spoofed
I saw confirmations for: Disk Serial ✓, Motherboard Serial ✓, BIOS UUID ✓, MAC Address ✓, GPU ID ✓, Volume ID ✓
The process took about 45 seconds total
It prompted me to restart — which I did
After reboot, I verified the changes by opening Command Prompt and running a few checks:
wmic diskdrive get serialnumberwmic baseboard get serialnumber wmic bios get serialnumberipconfig /allEvery single identifier showed new, randomized values. Pretty impressive, honestly.
Only NOW do I connect to WiFi or Ethernet. With spoofed identifiers active, my machine looks like a completely different computer to any remote server.
Download the Riot Client from the official Valorant website
Install normally
Let Vanguard install and initialize (it'll require a reboot)
After the Vanguard reboot, make sure your spoofer is still active — some tools need to be restarted after a Vanguard reboot, others persist automatically
This is super critical. If Vanguard loads before your spoofer's driver, it might read your real hardware identifiers first. Boot order matters. The tool I use has a service that loads automatically before Vanguard, which is why I chose it.
Have you ever had that moment where everything just clicks? That's what it felt like when I logged into my new account and actually got past the login screen for the first time in weeks.
You'd be surprised how many people go through the entire spoofing process perfectly — and then blow it on account creation. I almost did this myself.
Don't reuse any email associated with your banned accounts. Create a completely new email address — I recommend ProtonMail for privacy, or just a fresh Gmail if you don't care.
Create your new Riot account from the Riot Client itself or from the Riot Games website. Use your new email.
Important details people miss:
Don't use the same username patterns (if your old name was "xShadow2024," don't make the new one "xShadow2025" — Riot's systems can flag name similarities)
Don't add your old friends immediately — sudden reconnection with a known banned player's friend list is a behavioral flag
Don't use the same payment methods for any purchases
Valorant requires phone number verification for competitive play. If you used your phone number on your banned account, you'll need a different one. There are various VoIP and temporary number services, though Riot has gotten better at detecting those.
Here's the catch: this is one of the harder obstacles. Physical SIM cards are the most reliable option. I ended up picking up a $5 prepaid SIM specifically for this purpose.
When you first log in and launch Valorant:
Play a few unrated games first
Don't jump straight into competitive
Play normally — I cannot stress this enough
Let the account "age" for at least a few days before competitive
I've seen community reports suggesting that brand-new accounts jumping immediately into competitive ranked play from a freshly installed system can trigger additional scrutiny. Whether this is confirmed or just paranoia — I don't care. The extra 2-3 days of patience cost me nothing.
So your spoofer is running, your new account is active, and you're playing Valorant again. Now how do you stay clean?
This is where long-term discipline matters more than any tool.
I mean, obviously. But I have to say it because the statistics are brutal. According to data from various anti-cheat communities, roughly 60% of HWID-banned players who successfully spoof end up getting re-banned within 90 days — primarily because they go right back to cheating.
If you're spoofing because you genuinely got caught once and learned your lesson — or because the ban was a mistake — you'll be fine.
If you're planning to spoof just to keep cheating, you're going to be spending $30+ every few months in an endless cycle. Your call, but that's not sustainable.
Whenever your spoofer's developer pushes an update, install it. Immediately. These updates often patch new detection vectors that Vanguard has rolled out.
I set Discord notifications for my spoofer's update channel so I never miss one. There have been at least 3 instances where a Vanguard update temporarily detected my spoofer's method, but the developer pushed a fix within 12-24 hours.
If someone else plays on your machine and gets flagged, your spoofed identifiers get banned too. Then you're back to square one — except now you need to re-spoof AND deal with whatever mess they created.
Warning signs that your spoof might be compromised:
Random disconnections during matches
Unusually long loading screens at login
Error messages about "account restrictions" that appear briefly then disappear
Sudden VAL 5 or VAL 51 error codes
If you notice any of these, stop playing immediately and check for spoofer updates.
HWID spoofing isn't a "set and forget" solution. Here's my monthly maintenance routine — it takes about 15 minutes.
Once a month, I re-run the spoofer to generate fresh randomized serials. Some people think this is overkill, but my reasoning is simple: if Vanguard ever flags my current spoofed serials (maybe through a mass detection wave), I want to be on new identifiers quickly.
I spend about 10 minutes checking community forums and Discord for reports of detection waves. If multiple users report getting banned after a Vanguard update, I hold off playing until the spoofer dev confirms a fix.
My spoofer lets me save identifier profiles. I keep 3 different sets of spoofed serials and rotate between them every few months. Is this necessary? Probably not. Does it make me feel more secure? Absolutely.
Be careful with major Windows updates (like feature updates, not just security patches). I've had a Windows feature update break my spoofer's driver twice. Now I delay major updates by 2 weeks to let the spoofer community test compatibility first.
Speaking of compatibility issues — if you're dealing with Vanguard bans across multiple Riot titles, I wrote a guide on League of Legends HWID ban bypassing too, since the process has some game-specific differences.
I've compiled this list from my own failures and from dozens of community reports. Learn from our pain.
Mistake #1: Partial Spoofing
Only spoofing your disk serial but forgetting your motherboard serial is like putting on a disguise but forgetting to change your shoes. Vanguard uses a composite fingerprint — miss even one identifier and the similarity match might still trigger.
Mistake #2: Running the Spoofer AFTER Vanguard Loads
If Vanguard initializes first and reads your real hardware, you're done. Your real identifiers are already sent to Riot's servers. Spoofing after that accomplishes nothing. Boot order is everything.
Mistake #3: Reusing Old Account Details
Same email, same username pattern, same linked phone number, same payment card — any of these can link your new account to your banned one without any hardware matching at all.
Mistake #4: Connecting to Internet Before Spoofing
Windows sends telemetry data during its first internet connection. If your identifiers aren't spoofed yet, that data includes your real hardware fingerprint. Even though this isn't directly shared with Riot, it creates a traceable link.
Mistake #5: Bragging About It
I'm not joking. I've seen people get manually reviewed and banned because they told other players "I spoofed to get back after a ban." Riot employees do monitor reports and community channels. Keep it to yourself.
Mistake #6: Using Free Spoofers from Sketchy Sources
Remember that crypto miner I mentioned earlier? Yeah. Free spoofers are free for a reason — either they don't work, they're malware, or they're honeypots. The $30 investment in a reputable tool is worth it. This is my favorite investment because it literally costs less than a single skin bundle in Valorant.
You can also check this experience writeup from another user who went through a similar trial-and-error process.
I get this question constantly, so let's address it directly.
HWID spoofing itself is not illegal in most countries. Changing hardware identifiers that your computer reports is not a criminal act. You own your hardware, and there's no law (in the US, EU, or most other jurisdictions) that says you can't modify what your computer tells remote servers about itself.
However — and this is a big however — it almost certainly violates Riot Games' Terms of Service. If Riot detects that you're using a spoofer, they're within their rights to ban you again. You're not going to jail, but you're not protected from further account action either.
There's a legal gray area around tools that interact with kernel-level anti-cheat systems. The DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions could theoretically apply since you're circumventing a technological protection measure. But to my knowledge, no individual user has ever been prosecuted for spoofing hardware IDs. The legal risk is essentially zero for end users — it's tool developers who face potential legal exposure.
My take: understand the Terms of Service risk, accept it, and act accordingly.
I'd be lying if I said HWID spoofing is risk-free. It's not. Let me be completely transparent about the downsides.
Risk #1: Kernel-level software is inherently risky. You're giving a third-party tool the highest level of access to your system. If the developer is malicious, they could do virtually anything — keyloggers, data theft, remote access. This is why choosing a reputable tool with a verified track record is critical.
Risk #2: Anti-cheat detection evolves constantly. What works today might not work tomorrow. Vanguard's developers are smart, well-funded, and actively researching new detection methods. I've seen entire spoofing methods get nuked overnight after a Vanguard update.
Risk #3: It can become an expensive treadmill. If you keep getting re-banned (especially if you keep cheating), you're paying for spoofing tools, fresh accounts, phone numbers, and spending hours resetting your system. At some point, the economics don't make sense.
Risk #4: System instability. Kernel-level drivers can cause blue screens, boot failures, and compatibility issues. I've experienced exactly 2 BSODs related to my spoofer in 18 months — both were after Windows updates that conflicted with the driver. Not catastrophic, but annoying.
Honestly? If your ban was a one-time thing and you just want to play Valorant again on your existing hardware, the risk-reward makes sense. If you're planning to continuously cheat and spoof in a cycle — you're going to have a bad time eventually.
For those who also play League of Legends and need similar help, I've documented how to handle LoL-specific HWID bans as well, since the LoL + Vanguard integration has its own quirks.
A new hard drive only changes one of the 6+ identifiers Vanguard checks. I tested this specifically — bought a $45 SSD, installed it as my only drive, clean Windows install. Got re-banned in the first match. Vanguard's composite fingerprint matched my motherboard serial, BIOS UUID, and MAC address. You'd essentially need to replace your motherboard, all storage drives, AND your network adapter to match what a spoofer does for $30. Not worth it.
No. A VPN changes your IP address, not your hardware identifiers. Vanguard's HWID ban system doesn't rely on IP addresses at all. I've tested with 3 different VPN providers — NordVPN, ExpressVPN, and Mullvad — and the ban persisted with all of them. A VPN can complement spoofing (for additional privacy), but it won't replace it.
Based on Riot's support documentation, most HWID bans are permanent. There's no official expiration date. Some community members have reported bans lifting after 120+ days, but this is inconsistent and unreliable. I wouldn't count on waiting it out — you'd be waiting potentially forever.
Yes, it can — and it does, when spoofers fall behind on updates. Vanguard actively looks for signs of identifier manipulation. Modern detection methods include checking for inconsistencies between reported serials and expected formats, monitoring for driver-level hooks, and even fingerprinting spoofing tools themselves. That's why keeping your spoofer updated is non-negotiable. My spoofer has been updated 14 times in the past 6 months to counter new detection methods.
This depends entirely on your specific spoofer. Some tools load as persistent services that activate on every boot automatically. Others require manual activation. My current tool runs as a service — once installed, it activates before Vanguard on every startup without any action from me. If your tool requires manual launching, you MUST run it before Vanguard loads. Set a reminder or better yet, disable Vanguard's auto-start and only enable it after confirming your spoofer is active.
Yes. Since Riot implemented Vanguard across both Valorant and League of Legends, an HWID ban in one game can affect your access to others. I've personally confirmed this — my Valorant HWID ban also prevented me from playing LoL on the same machine. The Valorant HWID spoofer guide I published covers some cross-game considerations.
You can, but it's trickier. Laptops often have more integrated components, making it harder to spoof certain identifiers like the WiFi adapter's MAC address (which is sometimes hardcoded in firmware rather than software-configurable). I've successfully spoofed on a Lenovo Legion 5 and an ASUS ROG laptop, but my success rate on laptops is about 70% compared to nearly 100% on desktop PCs. Some community discussions on GitHub have addressed laptop-specific challenges in detail.
This is rare but possible. In my experience, the worst outcome was a blue screen that required me to boot into Safe Mode and uninstall the spoofer driver. I've never had permanent damage. That said, I always keep a Windows recovery USB handy, and I recommend you do the same. Think of it as insurance — you'll probably never need it, but you'll be glad you have it when you do. Some developers also share troubleshooting resources and discussions for handling driver conflicts.
Let me level with you as someone who's been through this process multiple times on multiple machines.
Using a valorant HWID spoofer to bypass a hardware ban isn't complicated — but it requires attention to detail. Skip one step, get lazy about one identifier, connect to the internet at the wrong time — and you're back at square one. The 7 steps I've outlined above represent everything I've learned from 18 months of testing, failing, iterating, and eventually succeeding.
The process takes about 2-3 hours from start to finish if you're doing it right. Fresh Windows install, spoofer setup, account creation, verification. That's the real time investment. After that initial setup, maintaining it takes maybe 15 minutes a month.
Is it worth it? For me, absolutely. My main PC is a $1,500 build that I wasn't about to stop using for one game. Spending $30 on a reliable spoofer versus buying a new motherboard for $200+ was an obvious choice.
But here's what I'll say as a final piece of honest advice: use this as a second chance, not a repeating escape hatch. The people who spoof once, play clean, and move on — they rarely have issues again. The people who treat spoofing as a license to keep cheating end up in an exhausting cycle of bans, resets, and wasted money.
Play the game. Enjoy it. Compete fairly. And if you need a fresh start on your hardware — now you know exactly how to get one.
If I can do it, so can you.
