ENC 2008: Participants for WarCraft III announced

A total of 26 European countries will be participating in ESL's European Nations Cup. 6 of them are seeded directly to the group stage, whereas the others will have to fight through the qualification rounds.

The European Nations Cup, also known as merely the ENC, will be held in Leipzig, Germany at the end of August this year. Six teams have been seeded to the main round, the group stage, where the two top teams of the two groups will be granted a place in the offline finals. However, the other 20 national teams are knocking on the door of the ENC and will fight for another six spots in the tournament.

The qualifying teams have been seeded in to four different categories. The seedings are seen to the right. The ones that have been seeded in to the first qualification round, labelled "QR 1", got the lowest seeding and will have to fight their way through all the qualification rounds if they want to make it to the group stage. The system is pretty complicated, but here is a great page to clarify things. It is very much alike the qualification system for the UCL, if it helps you in any way.

The qualifications start off with the first round on March 17, with the actual match drawings to be announced shortly.