Riot Games has suspended former professional VALORANT player Ardis “ardiis“ Svarenieks from co-streaming any VCT (VALORANT Champions Tour) event through August 19, 2026.
The suspension came after Ardiis used offensive language while co-streaming a Game Changers match. Hours after Riot’s announcement, esports organisation NAVI, which employed ardiis as a co-streamer, said it was suspending its working relationship with him as well.
Game Changers is a separate VALORANT esports circuit built to give women and other marginalised genders a competitive stage of their own. Under the 2026 rules for the circuit, every player on a team’s roster must identify as a woman or as gender diverse.
While co-streaming the broadcast, Ardiis repeatedly used discriminatory language and made transphobic comments about certain players. Riot Games addressed the incident through its official VALORANT Esports EMEA account, stating that Ardiis had violated its Terms of Service by using discriminatory and offensive language during the co-stream.
The statement said Riot does not tolerate discriminatory conduct or language targeting characteristics such as race, ethnicity, sex, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, religion, or nationality. As a result, Ardiis is barred from co-streaming any VCT competition effective immediately through August 19, 2026, and Riot warned that further violations could lead to a permanent loss of co-streaming rights.
NAVI followed with its own statement, saying it respected and fully supported Riot’s decision, that there is a line that should never be crossed, and that it was suspending its cooperation with Ardiis effective immediately. It is not yet clear whether NAVI’s suspension is temporary, matching the length of Riot’s ban, or a longer-term or permanent split.
Ardiis also posted an apology on X, saying that his comments about the transgender community were unacceptable, that he was sorry to everyone he had offended, and that it would not happen again.
Formal co-stream bans of this kind are pretty rare, but that doesn’t mean Riot hasn’t disciplined co-streamers before. The circumstances, however, have varied. In 2022, former LCS (League of Legends Championship Series) pro Doublelift received a one-week co-streaming suspension after calling the league “dying” in terms of viewership and criticising Riot over a charity showmatch dispute.
In 2020, Christian “IWDominate“ Rivera was removed from Riot’s League Partner Program for about a year after social media comments Riot said it violated its community standards, on top of a prior history of toxic behavior. He lost his official co-streaming rights during that period but could still stream independently, and his privileges were eventually restored after review.
Compared with those cases, Ardiis’s suspension is shorter in stated length but has already cost him his working relationship with NAVI, and it is the first of these cases tied specifically to remarks made about the Game Changers circuit.
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