Sorry, I couldn't help myself. In any case, it's nearly 9,000 bans so far, at least, with Riot warning that this is 'only the beginning,' and many more bans expected in the coming days and weeks.
Valorant has taken a strong stance on cheating, with its controversial Vanguard system installing a kernel driver onto players' systems. Despite the heavy-handed approach, however, cheaters still managed to find a way to spoil the fun for everyone else quite quickly.
Even though this is just closed beta, we've promised that we're going to be heavily committed to anti-cheat. This banwave is still only the beginning. We're going to ensure the highest standard of competitive integrity in VALORANT. https://t.co/EjxuYG0JEE
— Riot Vanguard (@RiotVanguard) May 12, 2020
The telemetry data collected has, however, started to pay dividends. Riot's Phillip Koskinas, who works on the game's anti-cheat team, stated that 8,873 players were banned from the game in quick order, with analyst Matt Paoletti saying on Reddit shortly afterward that "this is only the beginning."
They didn't go into detail on how the bans work, for obvious reasons, but we know they aren't using "hardware bans." However, they did say they won't be easy to avoid - although cheaters determined enough will "eventually figure it out."