29 competing teams are divided into four tiers based on their respective performance in past seasons. Finland, France, Germany, Russia, Ukraine and Sweden will start their ENC 09 campaign in main round, while the others go through qualifying rounds according to their rankings.

In the new season, ENC uses the same competition format as WC3L in the running season, which gives edge for many countries that have a couple of quality players. In the third qualifying round yesterday, Denmark, Poland and Spain cruised through in inspiring manner with 3-0 wins over Slovakia, Austria and Switzerland respectively.

The clash between Netherlands and Norway seized the most attention thanks to the cameo play of illustrious Norwegian Night elf player Olav 'Creolophus' Undheim. The 22-year-old retired in 2007 after his triumph in World Cyber Games, but agreed to play his role in Norway’s bid to qualify for the main round.

The Vikings led 1-0 right off the bat through their success in 2on2 games, but the Netherlands’ Orc duo Manuel 'GrubbY' Schenkhuizen and Kevin 'RotterdaM' van der Kooi registered three points combined thereafter that sufficed to end the game in their favour. In the last set that did not change the outcome of the game, Creolophus recovered from a 0-1 deficit to beat his ex-Four Kings team-mate Grubby 2-1.

Elsewhere, Romania edged past Bulgaria 3-2 thanks to their star player Silviu 'Nightend' Lazar, while Croatia crushed Belarus 4-1 to advance. Group draw and schedule for the main round will be released on a later notice.