I think Nations Cup is, essentially, always going to be a pretty mediocre event. Some countries are inherently a lot more stacked than others, and expanding the scope to include massive regions to make up for the lack of teams will always end up in some busted team because some great individual players can’t put together a stack for their own country. This has all made previous Nations Cups pretty underwhelming, and I firmly maintain that it’s nigh impossible to make a good one happen, no matter how well organized it is. If you disagree with that — which you’re free to do — go spam ping Kimer in Discord. I heard he’s in charge of organizing and needs the community to show public support for it.
With all of that said, though, every time talk of Nations Cup bubbles up, it brings along with it active discussions. Who would be the best? What teams could you put together in theory? Who would be the dark horses? Just exactly how many teams would destroy Sweden? I always enjoy theorycrafting these teams, so I’ve decided to collate some names and try to figure out the answers. This isn’t meant to be an exhaustive list — I’ve surely missed many good players, and they might change how the teams look, but at the end of the day, I’m just going off what feels right. If there’s a player who’s not been super active recently, but would contribute a lot to a team, I’ll generally include them. Some countries are clumped together into regions, some making more and some making less sense, but it’s all just theoretical and for good fun. After all, getting all of these players together would be an impossible task. The only criterium I stuck to was to include only players who have participated in an RD2L EU event, even if it’s a small cup at some point. However, for the most part, I looked at players who are high 4k and up — at least for the nations with a lot of players.
With that lengthy intro out of the way, let’s jump into the teams. They’re in no particular order, though I will discuss briefly who I think the very best are at the end. The players within the lineup are ordered by roles, 1 through 5.
The Teams
Team Finland
A-Team: Waloo — Glete — Paju— Windo — Shift
Honorable mentions: Darba, Spandy, Cvaekt, Harpake
Team Germany
A-Team: Woo — Yuma — Torge — Schuffi — REALLY
B-Team: Joll — Zasa — Mewes — Elpie — hi5
Honorable mentions: sbx320, Maegustav
Team Denmark
A-Team: Denden — TOP — PLATY— Kyubashi— Play
Honorable mentions: Kalisdar, Ruskomsnusk, Hazel
Team Poland
A-Team: Szajtek — Raffie — LPSD — SMMN — Vivern
Honorable mentions: Irevall, Debowy
Team Sweden
A-Team: Zakke — Huttendrutt— Neox — Lokie — NilsOlav
B-Team: Jedi Judas — XWZ — Haraway — Mikel — TheSucker
C-Team: Stl — Kalimoo — Low Expectations — Kimer — Nyk
Honorable mentions: Regurgitard, DmWp, Maus
Team Benelux
(Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg)
A-Team: Wesside — Crayon — Nsphere — Crispy Bacon — Boelens
B-Team: Moonchild — Omegasaw — Broos — KillerPanda — Fred
Honorable mentions: OverKoalafied, Ariu
Team Yugoslavia
(Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia, Macedonia)
A-Team: exZ — Madsen — STJ — Dildawg — Banebu
Honorable mentions: LukeSkyFaker, less, WastedCobe
Team Rest of Balkans
(Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Turkey)
A-Team: Blackjack — Harbinger — Roran — Tribo — Sardanapalos
B-Team: ssd — PONPO — Dantez — Saltimpagos — NaClO
Honorable mentions: Insidieux, Mitko
Team NA
(USA, Canada)
A-Team: CardinalStar — Logical — Sasquatch — Loves — Dembe
Team Baltics
(Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania)
A-Team: inx4c — KTZ — Paul — Severe — Agnitos
B-Team: Bloodyu — Acid — ZaikS — Smile — Unha
C-Team: Grimmjow — Valchers — 21fiends — Smile — zGrozemag
Team UK
The choices here became pretty arbitrary after the first two lineups, not gonna lie.
A-Team: Kk — Crysen — Dota — Thunderdyne — Myst
B-Team: Anstar — Neon — Cory — Bunnies — Ikki
C-Team: Sitham— Burge — Ovidiu — Barg — Mofarah
D-Team: Xela — eXcel — Kodo — SgtAverage — Holy Harry
E-Team: Takeshi — Maslyy — RageDino — Melalez — Nappa
F-Team: Roo — Matotimo — Burtoth — Kilgannon — MoltenKnight
G-Team: Ben— Kuroame — Helix — TokenGoat — Dazza
H-Team: BrainyGonzo— RampagingBench — Nibbles— Muffinsan— SoQwicker
Honorable mentions: Shnitzel, Anderkent, Poly, Unix, Scotalot, Gainsworth, Rinkusaur, Cilamo, Scraggy and probably many, many more.
I’ll leave concrete rankings for another time perhaps, but as it stands, I consider these teams the best:
Finland has a great mix of very strong players, as well as capable leaders in their ranks. Yuma’s appearance in the mini has made Germany a decent contender, but I don’t think they could stand up to stronger teams, like the Benelux A-Team. Sweden suffers from a lack of very high tier core players, and so too does — albeit to a much lesser extent — the UK team, but they can field multiple competitive teams.
However, at the end of the day, surprisingly enough, my pick for the best squad of the bunch is the Baltics A-Team, with an insane lineup that I think not many could challenge.
Still, this is purely theoretical, and I’m bound to have missed a fair few players. Let me know what you think the best teams are, and if I’m missing any game changers!
My writing routine, more often than not, is to take a walk and grab a coffee somewhere. If you want to support my content, you can buy me a coffee, but I’ll keep writing as long as there’s stuff to write about, no matter what.
Thanks for reading!
