The Esports World Cup Foundation (EWCF) announced Friday that Riot Games’ team-based hero-shooter Valorant has joined the lineup of competitive titles for the Esports Nations Cup 2026, set to take place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in November.
Valorant joins the other previously announced titles that will be part of ENC this year including Apex Legends, PUBG: Battlegrounds, Rainbow Six Siege, EA Sports FC 26, Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, Chess, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, Trackmania, and Honor Kings. A total of 16 titles will be played at the nation vs. nation competition. Five more titles are to be announced.
The Valorant tournament begins on Nov. 8, and will conclude with the playoff final on Nov. 15. The first stage of the competition will feature 32 teams competing in a round-robin group stage, featuring four groups of eight teams. The top four teams from each group will advance to a 16-team single-elimination playoff bracket. All group stage matches will be best-of-one, while all playoff matches (excluding the grand final) will be best-of-three. The grand final will be played in a best-of-five.
The top 16 teams will be directly invited based on a newly created “Valorant National Team Rankings,” 14 teams will be able to qualify through regional online qualifiers, and two teams will come from Wildcard slots.
The new Valorant National Team Rankings will take into account “regional and international Valorant Champions Tour competitions,” with those points equally shared across all Club teammates who participate. The national ranking will then “accumulate the points of the top five players on the submitted national roster.” The cut-off date for the national ranking is June 21.
ENC regional qualifiers will take place June 26 – 28. Qualifiers will be double-elimination brackets, hosted in each of the following regions:
- North America (2 slots)
- South America (2)
- Western Europe (2)
- Easter Europe (2)
- Middle East + North Africa (2)
- Asia (2)
- Southeast Asia + Oceania (2)
The ENC is set to take place Nov. 2 – 29, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The competition is being produced by the EWCF, which is funded through a so-called “sports grant” by the Saudi Arabian government’s sovereign wealth fund, the PIF.
Projects backed by the Saudi government are often accused of being used for “sports washing,” or as a cover for the government to gloss over its record on human rights, women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, its mistreatment (and executions of) journalists, military actions in Yemen, and more. These and other criticisms have been highlighted by international watchdog groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.