The qualifiers for the inaugural edition of the Esports Nations Cup have concluded, seeing 24 national squads qualify to compete at the $1,320,000 LAN event in November in Riyadh, Saudia Arabia.
Multiple regional qualifiers played out across the globe to decide the teams competing, with several notable names turning out for their nation to help guide them to qualification.
Owen "smooya" Butterfield and Oscar "AZUWU" Bell led the way for the United Kingdom to grab their ENC berth via the West Europe qualifier, whilst Germany ensured qualification via a BIG and M80 link up featuring Johannes "tabseN" Wodarz, Fritz "slaxz-" Dietrich and Elias "s1n" Stein.
Over in East Europe Laurențiu "lauNX" Țârlea helped Romania claim a ticket to Riyadh, and Justinas "jL" Lekavicius turned out for Lithuania as they also secured a spot in the main event.
Elsewhere across their respective qualifiers David "dav1deuS" Tapia Maldonado and Matias "HUASOPEEK" Ibañez Hernandez qualified with Chile, ex-Aurora coach Sezgin "Fabre" Kalaycı aided Turkey in booking their spot, and a collection of current and former FlyQuest members got together to ensure Australia earned qualification.
There are also plenty of elder statesmen of the Counter-Strike world who participated in their country's qualification battles. Headshot machine Adil "ScreaM" Benrlitom and his brother Nabil "Nivera" Benrlitom helped Morocco grab a place, Joshua "steel" Nissan took the reins and led Canada to qualification, and former Major-winner Dauren "AdreN" Kystaubayev coached Kazakhstan to success.
The 24 teams can now look forward to the LAN event from November 10-15, where they will be split into four groups to fight out a BO1 round-robin group stage. The playoffs will feature a BO3 single-elimination bracket with a BO5 grand final.
The full team list is as follows:
- United Kingdom
- France
- Denmark
- Germany
- Romania
- Lithuania
- Poland
- Bulgaria
- Brazil
- Argentina
- USA
- Canada
- Kazakhstan
- Turkey
- Uzbekistan
- China
- Mongolia
- Indonesia
- Vietnam
- South Africa
- Morocco
- Australia
- Chile
- Mexico