Fourteen nations qualify for Valorant at the Esports Nations Cup

The Valorant field of the first Esports Nations Cup is complete. The eight regional qualifiers of the competition between national teams ended on Sunday, June 28, 2026, and filled 14 places for the main event in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Sheep Esports reported that evening. The 14 nations join 16 that had been invited directly through the event's own ranking.

Vietnam, New Zealand, Japan, India, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Hungary, Czechia, France, Denmark, Argentina, Peru, Colombia and the Dominican Republic came through. Indonesia and Hong Kong, whose squads included players of the professional circuit, did not, and neither did Morocco.

Sheep Esports, June 28, 2026.

How the qualifiers were played

Valorant is a team shooter. At the Esports Nations Cup, run by the Esports Foundation, the teams are not clubs but national selections, and the qualifiers were organized by region over three days, from Friday, June 26, to Sunday, June 28.

Nearly 80 national teams took part across the eight qualifiers, according to Sheep Esports' guide to the final day. Every qualifier was a double-elimination bracket, a format in which a team is only out after its second defeat. Matches were played as a single map, a best-of-one, except the decisive matches of the final day, which were best-of-three series, won by the first team to take two maps. On Sunday, four teams were still in contention in most qualifiers for the last places; in the Middle East and North Africa, three remained for one place.

Six regions had two places each. Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East and North Africa had one each: the two regions shared one qualifier for Africa and the Middle East, split into two parts, Sheep Esports explained. The Sunday matches were streamed on the event's official Twitch and YouTube channels, while the Friday and Saturday matches were covered through watch parties or the players' own streams, and not every match was broadcast.

Asia and the Pacific: Indonesia and Hong Kong out

In the Southeast Asia and Oceania qualifier, Vietnam qualified without a single player from the VCT, the Valorant Champions Tour, the game's top professional circuit. It beat Australia 13-0, a map won without conceding a round, then beat New Zealand without dropping a map. New Zealand took the second place by beating Australia in the last match.

Indonesia had arrived as one of the clear favorites of the qualifier, Sheep Esports wrote before it began. The country was not among the sixteen nations invited directly, which the outlet noted went against many projections, and it had to go through an eight-team qualifier for two places. Its seven-player roster did not include f0rsakeN of Paper Rex, and the outlet saw his absence as the main reason Indonesia had missed a direct invitation; monyet of Rex Regum Qeon was missing too, which the outlet said reduced the team's firepower. Sheep Esports gave no reason for either absence. The squad was coached by roseaufy, a member of BOOM Esports' coaching staff in the Southeast Asian Challengers league, and drew on xffero and Kushy of Rex Regum Qeon, Nakya of BOOM Esports and BerserX, who joined Team Secret this season after leaving BOOM, with two players of the Chinese VCT league, Splash and deLb, as possible substitutes. Over the weekend, Indonesia lost 14-12 to New Zealand and then to Australia in the lower bracket.

In the Asia qualifier, Japan was the team with the most VCT players of the region, and it went through: Japan and Hong Kong met in the upper-bracket final on the last day. India took the second place by beating Hong Kong in the final match, a result Sheep Esports called an upset. Hong Kong's squad included SiuFatBB and NoMan, two players of the Chinese VCT league. Mongolia was the fourth nation still in contention in the region on the final day.

Africa, the Middle East, Europe and the Americas

South Africa won the Sub-Saharan Africa qualifier. Its first match was a walkover against Ethiopia, and it finished with a grand final against Nigeria in which it did not drop a map. In the Middle East and North Africa, Saudi Arabia, the host nation of the event, reached the grand final from the upper bracket and beat Morocco there; Morocco had also lost to Saudi Arabia in the upper bracket. Iraq and Tunisia were among the nations still in the lower bracket of the region on the final day.

In Eastern Europe, Hungary and Czechia took the two places. Before the last day, Hungary was due to play Ukraine in the upper-bracket final, while Czechia was in the lower bracket against Romania.

The Western Europe qualifier sent France and Denmark. France went through the bracket unbeaten, and did it without Veqaj, Sheep Esports noted. Denmark, which had lost to France earlier in the bracket, came back for the second place. The Netherlands and Portugal were the other two nations still in contention in the region on the last day.

Across the Atlantic, Argentina and Peru took the two places of the South America qualifier. In North America, Colombia and the Dominican Republic, which Sheep Esports lists under that qualifier, were the two teams of its upper-bracket final on the last day, while Mexico and Venezuela met in the lower bracket. Colombia and the Dominican Republic both qualified.

Denmark and the Game Changers players

Denmark's place has a second story. Its roster includes two players from the Game Changers scene, and Sheep Esports noted that Denmark is the only nation qualified through these regional qualifiers with Game Changers players. One of them is a Game Changers champion: the Game Changers Championship is the international tournament that brings together the best women's Valorant teams. The outlet credited both players with strong individual performances and several clutch rounds, won by a player left alone against several opponents, on the way to Denmark's place.

Sheep Esports counted on June 30 six players from the Game Changers scene on the rosters of the Esports Nations Cup in all, in what the outlet described as an integration into mixed international competition. It added that the dates of the event could overlap with the end of the Game Changers season, in particular with the Game Changers Championship.

The 16 nations invited on points

Before a single qualifier was played, sixteen places were already set. The 16 direct invitations were based on a ranking built from points, and each nation's score was calculated from the five highest-scoring players on its national roster, Sheep Esports reported on June 25.

The United States ranked first. Its roster was announced by the Esports Foundation on Tuesday, June 23, with eight players: valyn, trent, zekken, skuba, leaf, Ethan, Cryocells and JoshRT, Ethan being expected as a substitute. Three of them, valyn, trent and leaf, form the core of G2 Esports, which won all three VCT Americas splits in 2025 and Stage 1 in 2026, according to the outlet. Sheep Esports listed 2,400 points each for valyn, trent and leaf, and 2,900 each for skuba and Ethan.

What comes next in Riyadh

The Valorant tournament is scheduled from November 8 to 15 in Riyadh, according to Sheep Esports. It is one of the competitions of an event that the Esports Foundation has planned from November 2 to 29, 2026, as it said in March; Sheep Esports described an event of nearly 16 disciplines with teams from about 100 countries. Valorant was one of the games the outlet named that day, with League of Legends, Rocket League and Counter-Strike. After this first edition, the foundation plans to hold the competition every two years and to move it from one host city to another, according to its March release.

For many of the players, a summer with their clubs comes first. The Esports World Cup, the foundation's summer tournament for clubs, is next on the calendar, and Rex Regum Qeon, the club of two players on Indonesia's roster, is set to compete there, Sheep Esports noted.

The national teams are run by local structures the foundation set up this year. In March it named National Team Partners in more than 100 countries and territories, from more than 630 applications from 150. Under the structure Sheep Esports described in January, each partner appoints a National Manager, who oversees the choice of a coach for each game, and the coaches build the rosters. The calendar of that first cycle was short: Sheep Esports reported in March that the coaches of each game had to be approved by the national team manager by March 31, and that the players had to be chosen by the end of April. Where no partner was named, the foundation said its regional structures would support the teams.

With the 14 qualified nations now known beside the 16 invited, the national teams of the Valorant tournament are set more than four months before its first match on November 8.

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