Valorant Digest

All Esports World Cup 2026 Valorant Teams Confirmed

All 16 teams for the EWC tournament in Paris have been confirmed, including champions and regional qualifiers.

Benjy Golaub
9–13 minutes

With the regional qualifers coming to a close, all 16 teams (four from each region) have been decided for the upcoming EWC tournament being held in Paris from July 2nd to July 12th.

All of the teams that have made the tournament and their rosters, qualification, form and chances to win listed below:

Team Heretics

Team Heretics were the first team to be confirmed for their spot in the EWC with them being the holders of the 2025 EWC VALORANT trophy. They also were one of the teams that won their Stage 1 regionals, meaning that would have also gained their position straight to EWC without having to play the playoffs.

Their roster consists of:

  • Wo0t – Primary Duelist
  • Koshmaras – Flex
  • RieNs – Initiator
  • Benjyfishy – Sentinel
  • Boo – Controller/ IGL

They will go into the tournament as EMEA Stage 1 winners alongside being the current champions of EWC VALORANT. At Valorant Digest, we give them a high chance of retaining their trophy and winning Valorant EWC 2026.

Team Vitality

Now onto the 1st seeds from each regions, Team Vitality will go into EWC as the technical ‘1st seed’ from EMEA Stage 1 despite losing to Team Heretics in the Grand Final. Since Heretics were already confirmed due to their win last year, Vitality take the spot as the number 1 seed into EWC.

Their roster consists of:

  • Derke – Primary Duelist
  • Sayonara – Flex
  • Jamppi – Initiator/ IGL
  • Chronicle – Sentinel
  • PROFEK – Controller

They will go into the tournament as EMEA Stage 1 runner up. At Valorant Digest, we give them a medium/low chance of winning EWC and bringing the trophy back to EMEA since the teams across the tournament would be able to take advantage of their limited mid-rounding and small map pool.

G2 Esports

G2 are the 1st seed of the VCT Americas league, after taking down LEVIATAN 3-2 in the grand final of Stage 1, earning themselves a direct place into EWC without having to play an excessive amount of games and allowing them to focus on preparation for Masters London.

Their roster consists of:

  • JAWGEMO – Primary Duelist
  • leaf – Flex
  • trent – Initiator
  • BABYBAY – Sentinel
  • Valyn – Controller/ IGL

They will go into the tournament as VCT Americas Stage 1 winner. At Valorant Digest, we give them a high chance of winning EWC and bringing the trophy to Americas because of their consistent dominance of VCT Americas, EWC is a perfect chance to finally break their curse and take home a trophy that isn’t a VCT Americas regional trophy.

Paper Rex

Paper Rex are the 1st seed of the VCT Pacific league, reverse sweeping Stage 1 after their loss to Global Esports early on, earning themselves a direct place into EWC without having to play the play in games allowing them to focus on preparation for Masters London, giving them a direct place into play-offs.

Their roster consists of:

  • something – Primary Duelist
  • Jinggg – Flex
  • Invy – Initiator
  • D4V41 – Sentinel
  • f0rsakeN – Flex/ IGL

They will go into the tournament as VCT Pacific Stage 1 winner. At Valorant Digest, we give them a Very high chance of winning EWC and bringing the trophy to Pacific because of their consistent dominance of VCT, EWC is a tournament where, if they play to their highest potential, they would walk into France and walk out with the trophy.

EDward Gaming

The VCT 2024 Champions, EDward Gaming, confirmed their spot at the EWC with their dominant win over VCT China Stage 1 taking the number 1 seed into Masters London alongside their qualification for EWC.

Their roster consists of:

  • ZmjjKK – Primary Duelist
  • nobody – Initiator/ IGL
  • Jieni7 – Flex
  • Smoggy – Flex
  • CHICHOO – Sentinel

Despite going into this tournament as a Stage 1 winner, VCT China isnt seen as on the same level of competition as other regions, meaning their ceiling maybe on the same level as other but their floor is definitely lower. We give them at low chance to win the Esports World Cup trophy for VALORANT 2026.

MIBR

MIBR, despite the shocking results trying to qualify for a VCT Masters event this year, they managed a clean 5-0 total to reach EWC Paris in the qualifiers, whilst they await Stage 2 of VCT Americas.

Their Roster consists of:

  • aspas – Primary Duelist
  • zekken – Secondary Duelist
  • Verno – Initiator/ IGL
  • Mazino – Controller
  • tex – Sentinel

We give MIBR a moderate chance to win EWC 2026 only if they can guarrantee their performance that qualified them into the tournament to carry over into the EWC itself.

100 Thieves

100 Thieves are the other side from VCT Americas to qualify through to EWC through the qualifiers with another clean 5-0 aggregate scoreline against FURIA (2-0) and LOUD (3-0).

Their roster consists of:

  • Timotino – Primary Duelist
  • Asuna – Flex
  • Vora – Initiator/ IGL
  • bang – Controller
  • Cryo – Sentinel

We give 100 Thieves a moderate to low chance of winning EWC 2026. Despite looking strong in certain matches and leading into the EWC, they have been known across the last few years to stumble at the final hurdle. This year has been no different, failing to qualify for Masters Santiago and Masters London.

Gentle Mates

Gentle Mates are coming off of the back of a rough start to their stage 1 after breaking records in kick-off on the Yoru meta. When he got nerfed it seems that the team also got nerfed alongside it, with their resident Yoru, marteen, switching over to secondary duelist, Veto and even controller on some maps. They seem to have fixed their roles and solidified their roles with them now running a double duelist composition with Minny and Bipo swapping roles.

Their rumoured new roster consists of:

  • Minny – Primary Duelist
  • Marteen – Secondary Duelist
  • Starxo – Initiator/ IGL
  • Bipo – Sentinel
  • Proxh – Controller
  • GLYPH – Substitue

We give them a low chance of winning EWC 2026, despite it being in France giving them home advantage, they are switching out a key part of the reason they were so strong at the start of the year, GLYPH, for a player that previously played for Gentle Mates and failed, Proxh.

Karmine Corp

The second team to qualify from the EWC play-ins in EMEA is Karmine Corp, the final french organisation of the three. After a very rough start to the year, they enlisted the help of former KC player N4RRATE back from Sentinels and he has now picked up the secondary duelist role, sometimes flexing to Chamber on certain maps, allowing him to frag out on his best role.

Their roster consists of:

  • LewN – Primary Duelist
  • N4RRATE – Secondary Duelist
  • Avez – Initiator/ IGL
  • dos9 – Controller
  • SUYGETSU – Sentinel

We give them a moderate/ high chance to win EWC 2026 with a majority of that coming from their home advantage with so many Karmine Corp fans across France being so passionate about the Esports scene, it can give a huge moral boost to the players and N4RRATE thrives off of support especially the french fans in EMEA.

Global Esports

Global Esports made it to EWC with a 2-0 series run with wins coming over DFM (2-0) and the Masters Santiago Winners, Nongshim RedForce (3-2).

Their roster consists of:

  • UdoTan – Primary Duelist
  • Autumn – Flex
  • PatMen – Initiator
  • Xavi8k – Controller
  • Kr1stal – Sentinel/ IGL

We give Global Esports a moderate chance to win EWC with their current roster. They have incredible firepower when Patmen, Autumn and Xavi8k are performing to their best. However, that comes thick and thin nowadays with Patmen seemingly the only player stepping up in their recent games. If they can get all of their players on fire, they have a real chance to upset some EMEA fans and bring the EWC trophy to India.

Rex Regum Qeon

Their roster consists of:

  • Jemkin – Primary Duelist
  • Monyet – Flex
  • Crazyguy – Controller/ IGL
  • xferro – Sentinel
  • Kushy – Initiator

We give RRQ a low chance to win EWC 2026 with their roster being consistent at making internationals, but never making it far enough to be worth a mention of a title charge.

Xi Lai Gaming

Xi Lai Gaming are the only team from VCT China to make it cleanly through the qualifiers with wins over FPX (2-1), TYLOO(2-1) and Titan Esports Club (3-0).

Their roster consists of:

  • Rarga – Primary Duelist
  • NoMan – Flex
  • WsLeo – Initiator/ IGL
  • happywei – Sentinel
  • Lysoar – Controller

We give Xi Lai Gaming a very low chance of winning EWC 2026, re-iterating that despite coming into the EWC with a clean 3-0 record in qualification games, they did it through VCT China which is a considerably worse region to win in, compared to other regions. This fact is backed up by multiple poor performances from the region in total as most of their teams are consistently viewed as underdogs.

NRG

The fourth and final team from VCT Americas is NRG who made it through despite fumbling early to LOUD dropping down to the lower bracket where they made a clean run taking down FURIA(2-0), LEVIATAN(2-0) and revenging LOUD(3-0) in the final to earn the final Americas spot.

Their roster consists of:

  • Mada – Primary Duelist
  • keiko – Flex
  • Brawk – Initiator
  • Ethan – Flex/ IGL
  • Skuba – Sentinel

We give them a high chance of winning EWC because of their 2025 Champions win, they have managed to qualify for both Masters events and now onto EWC where the players are hungry for another trophy with Bonkar behind them. This current meta suits them very well with keiko on the second entry, dominating space and taking countless MVP’s home.

BBL

The final team from EMEA is BBL Esports who managed to make it through the lower bracket after going down 0-2 to FNATIC in their opening qualification match for EWC. They reverse swept the lower bracket taking down Eternal Fire(2-0), FUT Esports(2-1) and NAVI(3-0) to qualify for their second international of their year after dominating kick-off alongside Gentle Mates, and then missing out on Masters London.

Their roster consists of:

  • Lovers Rock – Primary Duelist
  • Lar0k – Flex
  • Rose – Initiator/ Flex
  • Crewen – Sentinel
  • Loita – Controller

We give BBL a moderate chance to win EWC 2026. They had their time in kick-off where they dominated EMEA as the new kids on the block. They took down EMEA giants to qualify for Masters Santiago as the first seed. However, after the meta switched, they struggled for a while to find their footing, but we belive they have found it with lovers rock and Lar0k going to their comfort roles and leaning more into the double duelist.

Nongshim RedForce

Nongshim are the final team from VCT Pacific to qualify for EWC 2026. Despite their historic Masters Santiago run to lift the trophy earlier this year, they have had a heavy fall-off since the yoru-nerf. It led them into a complete role swap between xross and francis.

Their roster consists of:

  • Dambi – Primary Duelist
  • Xross – Secondary Duelist
  • Francis – Initiator
  • Ivy – Sentinel
  • rb – Controller/ IGL

We give Nongshim RedForce a very low chance of winning EWC 2026. It is right to believe that Nongshim’s run through Kick-Off and Masters Santiago was that of a dream run. The meta at the time was Neon&Yoru leaning heavily on the space taking from the Neon player and the cleanup from Yoru. Dambi was and still is the best Neon player in the world and Francis’ clean aim meant that any space taken was taken completely by Francis. That type of form does not seem achievable anymore with this current meta with their roster.

All Gamers

The final team mentioned in this article, All Gamers, are the third seed from VCT China. They recently come back from their first international event as an organisation at Masters Santiago, where they had a long winded battle against Paper Rex who ended up being the 2nd place holders at Santiago.

Their roster consists of:

  • f4ngeer – Primary Duelist
  • K1ra – Flex
  • Bai – Sentinel
  • iamgrq – Controller
  • shr1mp – Initiator/ IGL

We give them a very low chance to win EWC, with the same point across Xi Lai Gaming being put across here with AG. However, it is even more true with this team where they have very limited international experience compared to the other teams. It seems like they could be labelled as the worst team at the event.

EWC could bring many surprises and shocks with the meta changing from early this year, new teams such as Karmine Corp, 100 Thieves and Global Esports are now making internationals and could make the run to Champions Shanghai & even the Chinese circuit can bring us some surprises and bring the Champions trophy back to Shanghai.

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