Official Discord server: https://discord.gg/B4BbM8tP8H

Hello everyone!
It's time to start preparations for the upcoming edition of Nations' Cup!
This season is organised by myself with help from the WZ hero, JustinR17, who also helps with running Clan League and MTL (https://www.warzone.com/Profile?p=1277277659&u=JustinR17_1)

Nations' Cup is a competition where players play games to represent their respective nations.
It's the second biggest community event in WZ, after Clan League, with well over 200 players participating every season!

Timeline:
Signups start:........................now!
Signups end:........................ July 20th
Qualifier round 1:................July 23rd ...................Guiroma (KU version) https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=41695180
Qualifier round 2:................August 3rd ...............Aseridith (light fog) https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=41695135
Main Event round 1:...........August 24th .............French Brawl (normal fog) https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=41627695
Main Event round 2:...........August 31st .............Tarabonia's Choice https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=41547077
Main Event round 3:...........September 7th .......Landria https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=40935423
Main Event round 4:...........September 14th .....MME WR https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=41695235
Main Event round 5:...........September 21st .....Aseridith (light fog) https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=41695135
Quarterfinals..........................October 12th ..........MME WR + Aseridith (light fog)
Semifinals:...............................November 2nd ......Tarabonia's Choice + French Brawl (normal fog)
Final:......................................... November 23rd .....Landria + Guiroma (KU version)

Please note that the starting dates of some rounds, especially Quarterfinals and later, can change by a week or two, depending on speed of earlier rounds.

Who can participate?
Although all games are played as 1v1, this is a team competition where you score points for your team (country), and you must sign up as a team. You can use this thread to show interest in forming a team, or you can start a new thread on the WZ Classic forums.
Signups of individual players will be ignored.

A full team is composed of 6 players, but you can sign up with as few as 4 players. This will lead to your team missing some games, but you automatically earn 0.5 win for each such game (and opponents get a full point).

If your country has lots of players, you can consider submitting multiple teams, for example USA A, USA B etc, up to 4 teams per country. To improve your chances for a good result, you should aim to put your best players in your A team.
You can also substitute or add new players to your team during the competition, as long as they haven't played for another country this season, and with the limit of 1 substitution per round.

Every player should be at least level 54. This is a guarantee that they have all the important maps and settings unlocked.

To stay in the spirit of this competition, players should only play for a country to which they have a strong real-life connection.

Every player must play for himself. Getting help from other players or playing on multiple accounts is against the rules, and also very lame. You don't want to show the entire WZ community that your country is lame.

To sign up your team, you should ideally send me a WZ-mail with profile links to members of your team. Alternatively you can post it in this thread, or even send me a message in Discord.

What's the format?
All games are played with 2 days boot time base + 3 days banked, vacations not honored.

The competition is split into 3 phases: qualifiers, main event, and knockout phase.

In the qualifiers, teams will be split into 8 groups of 3-4 teams. Depending on group size, every player will get 2-3 games against their opponents on July 23rd, and another 2-3 on August 3rd. The two teams in each group with the highest number of wins advance to the main event.

Futhermore, eight A teams who historically achieved the best results will completely skip these qualifiers. These teams are:

France
USA
Switzerland
Italy
Germany
Poland
UK
Ireland

The main event is scheduled to start at August 24th. The 8 aforementioned teams and the 16 teams who passed the qualifiers will be split into 4 groups of 6.
Each player will play 1 game each round for 5 rounds. Top 2 teams from each group will enter the quarterfinals.

In the quarterfinals, semifinals and the grand final, two teams will face each other directly and play 12 games. If needed to avoid a tie, a 13th game will also be created. Each team will choose their (best) player to play that 13th game.

Tiebreakers
What if f two or more teams finish with the same score after the group phase?
Main teams (meaning, the A teams) get priority over the secondary teams. In general, the first tiebreaker goes this way: A>B>C>D.
The second tiebreaker is the head-to-head result, in other words, the win rate in direct games between teams in question.
The last tiebreaker is the initial seeding, with higher seeded team getting priority. Since seeding is based on past results, it's a fair way of resolving a tie.

More information
Not everything can be fit into a single, easy to read forum post. If you have questions, feel free to ask them here :)
Better yet, you can check out our Discord server and chat with people: https://discord.gg/B4BbM8tP8H
If you want to check the results of previous editions, all the relevant information can be found here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WRdCH06j73WjuOc7IV7j5oEwxy_0NLli7o8qrWpV4bY/edit?usp=sharing

The organiser is free to allow or ban any teams or players, in particular those signed up only to troll.

---
Team contacts - mail them if you're interested in playing! :)

Poland: https://www.warzone.com/Profile?p=269930540&u=Rento_1
Netherlands: https://www.warzone.com/Profile?p=1477223682&u=koning_1
Italy: https://www.warzone.com/Profile?p=35118422654&u=stefano36000_1
Canada: https://www.warzone.com/Profile?p=1277277659&u=JustinR17_1
Belgium: https://www.warzone.com/Profile?p=93123139452&u=Leia+-+Princess+of+Coinwheels_1
Germany: https://www.warzone.com/Profile?p=7733320768&u=alexclusive_1
Spain and Spanish speaking Americas: https://www.warzone.com/Profile?p=5619988369&u=Pavluski_1
Australia&New Zealand: https://www.warzone.com/Profile?p=4090173830&u=LND_1
UK: https://www.warzone.com/Profile?p=4419488318&u=dry-clean-only_1
Ireland: https://www.warzone.com/Profile?p=33146680727&u=Pablo+Platcasso_1
Czech Rep: https://www.warzone.com/Profile?p=5190249422&u=Brak%F0%9F%98%A1_1
Nordics: https://www.warzone.com/Profile?p=105380470&u=INSIDE_1
France: https://www.warzone.com/Profile?p=3121640550&u=Tof_1
USA: https://www.warzone.com/Profile?p=50101486765&u=Saleen147_1

Edited 7/10/2025 13:18:02

Thanks for organizing again Rento!
We are recruiting for the Dutch teams, so we will sign up with names later on!

Just out of curiosity, when will you announce the templates?

thanks rento!!!

It seems I'll be organising team Italy, contact me if interested! :)

Happy to play for UK :)

Are the games 1v1?
I mean:
When you say teams, it means nations teams, but not teams like 2v2 or 3v3 right?

if there's a Spanish team you can count on me. thanks

I'll be organizing team Canada message me if you're interested in joining :)

@Bahamut all games are 1v1.

@DUDU there was no Spanish team last season so not sure who might be the organiser, in 2023 pavluski was the Hispanics team contact, maybe see if they are interested (or just start forming a team with Bahamut :))

https://www.warzone.com/Profile?p=5619988369&u=Pavluski_1

I'm sure there are enough Spanish players to make a good team!

(if you want to look for some you can find the nationality of the account in the AWP or clan league spreadsheet)

Edited 6/25/2025 07:12:50

Alguien que me explique ¿ tienen que ser todos del mismo pais?
He conocido solo 3-4 Chilenos durante todos mis años en el juego. Está dificil.

Can someone explain me, do all members have to be from the same country? I've only met 3 or 4 Chileans in all my years playing the game. It's tough

in the past players from countries with small player bases have grouped forces (South East Asia team last year for instance) up to Rento to see what he allows this year.

Edited 6/25/2025 08:32:49

Belgian players can join our Discord server https://discord.gg/SjZMERZm or report to me to get a spot in our team!

Like in previous years, I will be signing up the German teams, most likely two or three. If you want to field an own team for Germany consisting of your friends, please be so kind and contact me to coordinate with me. We also have a Discord server for that. Cheers!

Querida gente hispanohablante. Existe un equipo mixto, Argentinia/Chile/EspaÑa estan representados. Si hay suficientes interesados podemos crear un segundo equipo hispanohablante. No importa en que país estes viviendo.....contactame y veamos si se puede realizar...

Australia & New Zealand will be signing up!
Thanks Rento for organising again!
If you're an Aussie or Kiwi and want to join Team ANZ for Nation's Cup, please send me a mail or join our discord server: https://discord.gg/5TpHkQCsXy
ANZ team managers: Seraph, Texx, LND

Edited 6/27/2025 06:21:33

Edited 7/3/2025 16:31:48

Team Germany is looking for at least three more players, contact me if you are interested!

My efforts to make anyone else organise Team UK are not off to a good start so message me if you need to be added to the Team UK group :)

The templates for this season have been decided.

I've been asked to stop using the same overplayed templates we've seen for the last 10 years. And I get the idea.

But I also have been asked by other people not to include any 'weird' settings like MA, AC or even WR. Makes sense, since in this format every player plays every template, so adding too advanced settings that require specialised knowledge might be too much. And we didn't give a lot of time to prepare and learn.

Instead of choosing a side in this 'conflict', I decided on a solution that satisfies noone and picked templates that noone has asked for.

Most of them are very slight alterations to the old vanilla templates, which still makes them keep their old vanilla character, but can't really be called 'overplayed'.

In the ideal world, this doesn't lead to any drama at all, but just lets people have fun in this more lighthearted but competitive event.

And so the templates are:

1. Guiroma (on the Kate Upton map) https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=41695180

Noone can say it's a bad template because it's literally Guiroma. The map is functionally the same.
Some people played Guiroma 1000 times and now just put their brain on autopilot when playing it. It's interesting but the visual changes on this map are enough to confuse your brain and force you to analyse the map again, like you used to do 1000 Guiroma games before.

2. MME WR https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=41695235

Current 1v1 ladder template uses the Modified Medium Earth (MME) map and the modern luck settings (Straight Round, SR).
Old 1v1 ladder template used the old Medium Earth (ME) map and the old luck settings (Weighted Random, WR).

This template will use the old luck settings on the new map.

3. French Brawl, Normal Fog https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=41627695

Remember the old times, before the FB template was invented? Light Fog was considered 'not strategic'. A noob setting that made the game easier and took away all the skill in figuring out opponent's starts and potential counters. So let's travel to the alternative reality where Light Fog is still unstrategic and let's play FB on normal fog.

Even if the best players can figure out 90% of opponents' actions behind the fog, the uncertainty of the remaining 10% adds an interesting spin.

4. Aseridith, Light Fog https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=41695135

Now let's change things in the other direction. Again, the best players could figure out 90% of their opponent's expansion behind the fog, so let's make it 100% for a few games. It worked on FB, so why not here?

5. Tarabonia's Choice https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=41547077

A pretty new template. All things considered, it's also pretty vanilla. So let's play it before it becomes overplayed!
The gimmick here is that each player starts with a bunch of cards, but can only keep 1 of them.

6. Landria https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=40935423

I was considering it last season, but was unsure.
But now I believe it's time for Landria to enter Nations' Cup.
Yes, the bonus system is unique and requires experience.
But so do all the INSS templates like Biomes/Africa/Aseridith.
I believe that Landria is old enough and popular enough that most competitive players should get themselves acquainted with it by 2025.

missing links to example games will be added soon

the breakdown on which template will be played in which round will also be added soon

Edited 7/6/2025 08:37:50

Guiroma (on the Kate Upton map)

Desperate times call for desperate measures, lmao

I respect it. 10/10 template selection.

Edited 7/3/2025 18:51:47