Counter-Strike 2 is officially added as one of 16 titles at the inaugural Esports Nations Cup in Riyadh, with a dedicated national-team tournament running from Nov. 10 to 15, 2026.
This is the largest open qualification system in Counter-Strike history, with more than 3,000 teams and over 15,000 players expected to take part across national and regional qualifiers.
Out of this huge pool, only 24 nations will make it to the CS2 finals in Riyadh, but the path to get there is designed to be as open as possible while still leaning on existing competitive structures.
The CS2 event itself will feature a two-stage format once teams arrive in Saudi Arabia. The action starts with 24 national lineups split into four groups of six, playing round-robin best-of-one matches to determine who moves on.
The top four teams from each group will qualify for a 16-team single-elimination Playoff bracket, where series extend to best-of-three, before a best-of-five grand final closes out the tournament on Nov. 15.
A new CS2 National Team Ranking system will decide which countries even get a shot in the first place. That ranking is built on Valve’s Regional Standings, which assign points to clubs and then distribute those points evenly to the players who earned them.
Each nation’s ranking is calculated using the top five players from the country’s roster, with FACEIT Elo serving as a backup metric in regions or teams where the Valve system doesn’t fully cover. Qualifying begins at the national level, with tournaments scheduled in 96 countries and territories to determine each nation’s best CS2 lineup.
These National Qualifiers will be single-elimination events, with at least 32 teams and up to 64 in larger countries, split across regions including North America, South America, Western and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia, Africa, South and East Asia, Southeast Asia, and Oceania.
Winners will advance to Regional Qualifiers, which then transition to a double-elimination format, funneling teams into the 24 available ENC slots.
CS2 at ENC 2026 has also been slotted in as a VRS Tier 2 event, and that comes with some strict roster rules. National teams must be built entirely from players sharing the same citizenship, and no more than three players from a single VRS-ranked club can appear on one national lineup as of the June 1, 2026, cutoff.
In return, clubs that release three of their core players to a national squad will still be able to earn Valve Regional Standings points from the event.
The Esports World Cup 2025 ended with an all-Turkish Aurora Gaming roster facing an all-Mongolian The MongolZ in the grand final, where The MongolZ swept the series to claim the trophy.
With ENC and an expanded CS2 format also planned for the Esports World Cup 2026, national competition will play an even bigger role in the game’s future.
