Who Will Be the Strongest Country at the Dota 2 Esports Nations Cup 2026?

Dota 2 has been added to the Esports Nations Cup lineup, which means we’ll get to see exciting new national rosters competing for a huge $1,500,000 prize pool. Watching the tournament will be fun, but half the excitement comes from seeing how each country puts together and represents its team.

What is the Esports Nations Cup?

The Esports Nation Cup is a new tournament line run by the Esports World Cup Foundation –  the same organizers for the Esports World Cup (previously known as Riyadh Masters) tournaments that boasted million-dollar Dota 2 prize pools. 

As its name suggests, the Esports Nation Cup will be a national-based competition, meaning players will represent their countries instead of their usual esports organizations. Normally, we’re used to seeing players from all over the world competing in an international lineup, but now, we’ll get something different. 

Which Countries Can Send the Strongest Representatives?

The real question is which team is going to be the strongest heading into the event. More specifically, which countries have the best players available to fill every role needed for a complete and competitive lineup?

The tournament is scheduled for all the way back in November 2026, so it’ll be a long time before we actually figure out what the teams will look like. So, I’ve put together what I believe will be the top competing countries heading into Esports Nations Cup 2026.

Of course, none of these lineups are official. 

Russia

Russia is clearly going to be one of the top dogs at the Esports Nations Cup. To give you an idea, 16 out of 80 players at The International 2025 were Russian.. 

Here’s what I believe Team Russia could look like:

• Alan “Satanic” Gallyamov or Ivan “Pure” Moskalenko
• Danil “gpk” Skutin or Stanislav “Malr1ne” Potorak 
• Dmitry “DM” Dorokhin
• Aleksandr “rue” Filin
• Andrey “Dukalis” Kuropatkin

You could literally put together two Russian rosters, and both teams would still be extremely competitive. 

China

If there’s one region that still runs national teams, it’s obviously China. While the Chinese Dota 2 region has struggled in recent years, they still have some of the strongest players in the scene. Xtreme Gaming had a miracle run at TI in 2025 and with Ame at the helm, maybe they’d be able to contend here too. 

What Team China could look like:

• Wang “Ame” Chunyu
• Zhou “Emo” Yi or Guo “Xm” Hongcheng
• Lin “Xxs” Jing
• Zhao “XinQ” Zixing or Lin “planet” Hao
• Zhang “y`” Yiping

It also helps that most of these Chinese players have teamed up together at some point, so there should be some existing chemistry. 

Ukraine

Ukrainian Dota 2 is still certainly on the map, as there are some really heavy hitters from this country. Though there aren’t too many Ukrainian players competing in Tier 1, you can still assemble a very solid lineup:

Team Ukraine could bring the following:

• Illya “Yatoro” Mulyarchuk
• Volodymyr “No[o]ne-“ Minenko
• Yurii “pma” Prots
• Myroslav “Mira” Kolpakov
• Stanislav “Riddys” Mitroshkyn

Team Ukraine can also look into getting Artem “Niku” Bachkur from Natus Vincere if they want to invest in younger talent. 

Malaysia

A sleeper team that could seriously put up a fight would be Team Malaysia. Again, they don’t have too many big names, but they certainly have enough to represent their country competitively. 

Malaysia has these players to offer:

• Daniel “Ghost” Chan
• Cheng “NothingToSay” Jin Xiang
• Yeik “MidOne” Nai Zheng
• Yap “xNova” Jian Wei
• Chan “Oli” Chon Kien

MidOne has a history of playing every core role, so I believe he can definitely slot into the Offlane. However, there’s also Thiay “JT-” Jun Wen or Nicholas “zeal” Lim available if needed. There is a role clash between Oli and xNova, but one of them can surely adjust to Soft Support.

Philippines

Dota 2 is huge in the Philippines, so you bet they have several candidates to form a competitive roster. However, I’ll be a bit boring and flat out say they’ll just bring the current OG roster.

The OG roster, full of Filipino players is as follows:

• John “Natsumi-“ Vargas
• Erin Jasper “Yopaj” Ferrer
• Nikko “Force” Bilocura
• Timothy John “TIMS” Randrup
• Andrei “skem” Ong

These guys have been on a tear lately, and if they were to stick together for this tournament, they’d have unmatched chemistry. 

Peru

Of course, we can’t leave out Peru, especially with Peru Rejects on the rise. They have some extremely solid players and some big names, too. 

If Team Peru were to compete, they would look like:

• David “Parker” Nicho Flores
• Santiago “TaiLung” Agüero
• Frank “Frank” Ayala
• Elvis “Scofield” Peña
• Jose “Panda” Padilla

They could also simply send out the entire Peru Rejects roster. I’m not too familiar with the Peruvian scene, so I’m not 100% on this roster I’ve put up. But sending out Parker and Scofield together would already make any roster worth watching out for. 

Kazakhstan

From Eastern Europe, we also have Kazakhstan, another team that has some familiar faces. These guys definitely have the potential to be at least competitive.

Five Kazakhstan players the country can send out are:

• Alimzhan “watson” Islambekov
• Nikita “Nicky`Cool” Ostakhov
• Abdimalik “Malik” Sailau
• Tamir “daze” Tokpanov
• Arman “Malady” Orazbayev

Watson and Malady have great chemistry, having laned together for a long time and recently winning DreamLeague Season 27. The rest of the players play for lower-tier teams. 

However, we’re going to have to wait quite a while to see how these rosters turn out, as the Esports Nations Cup is scheduled close to the end of the year.