Who Can Win the Esports World Cup 2026 Club Championship?

In the first two iterations, there was only one realistic winner of the Club Championship, as Team Falcons enjoyed a huge advantage in the number of entries and the quality of those entered rosters, but one organization has the chance to challenge in 2026.

The history of the Esports World Cup: Falcons win by the numbers

Let’s be honest, the Esports World Cup Club Championship is a numbers game, and one that has heavily favored Team Falcons in previous years.

In 2024, Team Falcons qualified 17 teams for the 22 events that granted Club Championship points. The next closest organization was Twisted Minds, which had 12 qualified rosters but, due to the quality of their rosters, only finished joint 22nd in the standings.

Instead, it was Team Liquid who finished second in 2024, despite only having 9 teams at the event. Finishing with 2545 points, they were an extremely distant second to Team Falcons, who finished with 5665 points.

In 2025, Falcons were again, by far, the organization with the most teams with 22 qualified entries into the main events across the tournament.

Falcons had 22 qualified teams across EWC 2025, with Virtus.pro (17), Twisted Minds (14), Liquid (13), and Team Vitality (11) trailing behind.

Falcons only won one tournament at EWC 2026, winning the Overwatch Champions Series Midseason Championship 2025, with multiple rosters, such as their Rocket League, Rainbow Six: Siege X, and Counter-Strike rosters, falling below expectations.

For a time, it looked possible that Falcons could miss out on the Club Championship if their rosters continued to underperform, but the sheer weight of the number of entries proved enough to pull them over the line with 5200 points

Falcons averaged 236 points per entry. By contrast, Team Liquid averaged 323 to finish second on 4200 points, and Team Vitality averaged an even better 368 points to finish third with 4050 points in the Club Championship.

Could Team Vitality cause an upset at EWC 2026?

So Falcons have an established formula for success at EWC. The Saudi organization has both invested in quality rosters and invested in a large quantity of rosters, which fits EWC’s reward structure.

Again, the Saudi org has the most qualified teams for the event, with 22 qualified teams across the 25 events at EWC 2026. So, is it third time’s the charm for Falcons? For the first time at the EWC, maybe not.

The difference at the Esports World Cup 2026 is that a few organizations have enough quantity across the event to potentially challenge Team Falcons if they moderately outperform Falcons on average.

Making use of EWC incentives, Team Vitality and AG.AL International has 18 and 17 rosters across the event, respectively. Crucially, Vitality will have home crowd advantage combined with strong average quality across their rosters.

Team Vitality CSO Nicolas Maurer told Insider Gaming, “The Club Championship rewards $7 million to the winner, $5 million to second, $4 million, $3 million, $2 million… So there is a huge incentive to be at the top. We are one of the orgs strong enough to be able to play that game and try to compete in the Club Championship. It leads us to go and fall into many new games.”

Combining with their dominant and record-breaking Counter-Strike roster, Vitality’s Women’s MLBB team, their talented Rocket League roster, and multiple Chess Grandmasters on their books, Vitality have the potential to challenge in Paris.

Team Vitality still faces an uphill battle against the superior numbers of Team Falcons across EWC 2026, but if they can outperform Falcons per entry as they did in 2025, they have a chance of being the first organization not called Team Falcons to win the EWC Club Championship.