The Esports World Cup Foundation has confirmed that Counter‑Strike 2 will be one of the featured titles at the Esports Nations Cup (ENC), a national team tournament scheduled to take place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The CS2 competition at ENC will run from November 10 through the final on November 15 and will offer a total prize pool of $1,320,000.
ENC’s Counter‑Strike 2 event is designated as a VRS Tier 2 competition and includes strict eligibility rules for national teams. Rosters must consist solely of players who share the same national citizenship. For nations and rosters that appear in the Valve Regional Standings (VRS) as of the cut‑off date of June 1, 2026, no more than three players from the same VRS‑ranked club may be registered on a single national team.
Organizers also specified a pathway for clubs that loan players to national teams: if a club releases three members of its core lineup into a national roster, that club will be able to earn VRS ranking points for the club based on performance at the ENC.
The tournament proper will start with 24 national teams competing in a round‑robin group stage. These teams will be split into four groups of six, with the top four teams from each group advancing to the next phase. The knockout stage will be a single‑elimination playoff bracket featuring the 16 qualified teams.
Match formats are set so that every group stage contest will be a best‑of‑one, while playoff matches will be contested as best‑of‑three series. The grand final of the event will be a best‑of‑five.
The 24 slots for the ENC Counter‑Strike 2 event will be decided through a two‑stage qualifying process taking place from July 6 to July 19. Qualification will rely on a newly introduced CS2 National Team Ranking to determine which countries and territories are eligible to host national qualifiers and to seed teams.
That national ranking is derived from the Valve Regional Standings system, which allocates points to clubs; those points are then equally distributed among club members who participated. The CS2 National Team Ranking will aggregate the points of the top five players on a national roster to produce the country’s score. The cut‑off date for this ranking is June 1, 2026.
For nations and rosters not represented in the VRS, the organizers will use FACEIT Elo points as a secondary mechanism to decide which nations receive national qualifiers and to seed teams where VRS data is not applicable.
The first stage of qualification will consist of national qualifiers held across 96 countries and territories, each delivering a single winning team that advances to the regional qualifier. National qualifiers will use a single‑elimination bracket format and will be organized across these regions, with the indicated number of national events per region: North America (8), South America (8), Western Europe (16), Eastern Europe (16), Middle East & Central Asia (16), North Africa (4), South & Central Africa (8), South & East Asia (8), Southeast Asia (8), and Oceania (4).
Regional qualifiers form the second stage and will determine which national teams secure berths at the ENC. These events will be conducted as double‑elimination brackets. The number of slots awarded to each region for the ENC is as follows: North America 3, South America 3, Western Europe 4, Eastern Europe 4, Middle East & Central Asia 3, North Africa 1, South & Central Africa 1, South & East Asia 2, Southeast Asia 2, and Oceania 1.