Imagine Gianni Infantino wakes up one morning and decides that only fifth-division players are allowed to compete at the World Cup. The guys who fix your water pipes by day and kick a ball around by night. It wouldn’t exactly be must-watch television, would it?

Well, that’s more or less what the Esports Nations Cup is shaping up to be.

The idea itself isn’t new. A Counter-Strike tournament where national teams face off to crown the best country in the world has happened before - most recently with the relatively obscure IESF World Championship in 2024. The difference this time is the much larger prize pool, courtesy of the same seemingly bottomless pockets behind the EWC - which, by the way, would’ve been a far more fitting name for an actual Esports World Cup.

Running from November 10-15 and boasting a hefty $1,320,000 prize pool, the ENC’s format is simple: 24 qualified teams enter a round-robin group stage, split into four groups of six, with the top four from each group advancing to single-elimination Playoffs. Each national roster is limited to a maximum of three players from the same club, meaning orgs could still earn VRS points if they allow their core to compete.

Sounds exciting on paper, but why is this a concept doomed from the start? For several reasons, actually, but we’ll spare you the full sermon.

First and foremost, the calendar. The CS schedule is already suffocatingly packed. Adding another event would be tough on its own, but the situation worsens when the ENC is scheduled to run directly alongside BLAST Rivals S2 - a tournament the top teams will undoubtedly prioritize and are likely already planning around.

Then there’s the VRS problem.

As 100 Thieves’ GM messioso pointed out with a hypothetical scenario, do you really think a team like Spirit would simply send donk, magixx, and sh1ro to farm a few VRS points? And would Falcons let m0NESY and kyousuke attend - at no benefit to themselves - just because it sounds cool?

Not to mention the sheer number of conflicts and questionable situations that can arise when you start mixing national-team and club matches in the same ranking system.

Oh, and there’s just one more minor detail.

The ENC wraps up just ten days before the PGL Singapore Major begins. If you think top teams will sacrifice precious bootcamp and preparation time to send players to the Mickey Mouse Toontown Cup, we’ve got bad news for you.

Unfortunately for the ENC, in the VRS era, money isn’t everything. This isn’t the kind of problem you can solve by simply throwing more cash at it - unless, of course, you’re handing out a million dollars to every player and organization that agrees to participate.

Hell, in that case, even we’d be feeling patriotic.

[Editor’s note: the above sentence was written by our Portuguese writer. For the English here: God save the king.]