World Championship

The Magic: The Gathering World Championship (commonly referred to as Worlds) is a yearly tournament to crown the best Magic player in the world. It has been held annually since 1994, and is considered the most prestigeous Magic tournament.
==Description==
===History===
The first Magic World Championship was held at the Gen Con in Milwaukee, USA on 19–21 August 1994. Unlike later World Championship events, anyone could register for the event, which was a 512-player single elimination tournament held across three days. Among the competitors was later head designer for Magic, Mark Rosewater. After two days of single elimination, the final four consisted of three Europeans – the top European players were considered to be ahead of the top American players at this time – and one American, Zak Dolan. Dolan defeated Belgium's Dominic Symens 2–0 in one semifinal; the other was between two French players, Bertrand Lestrée and Cyrille DeFoucand, with Lestrée winning 2–0. Lestrée had been the pre-tournament favorite, but was defeated 2–1 in the final, making Zak Dolan the first Magic World Champion.
Since 1995, Worlds has been an invitation-only tournament. From 1996 to 2011, it was the event that concluded the current Pro Tour season, with invitations being awarded to high-level Pro players, players with a sufficiently high DCI rating, as well as the top finishers in each country's National Championship. The event featured an individual competition, with the winner being crowned the Magic: The Gathering World Champion, as well as a national team competition, where the winning team became the Team World Champion.
After the 2011 season, the World Championships was split in two. The individual competition was replaced by the Players Championship, a highly exclusive event featuring just 16 top pro players. In 2013, this event was renamed to the 'World Championship' once again, and since 2014, 24 players have been invited to compete. The team competition was replaced by the World Magic Cup, a national team competition that ran from 2014-2018, and featured teams from 72 to 74 countries.
The World Championship is typically a three-day event taking place at different times and locations every year. The 2015 World Championship was held in August, at the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle. In 2013 and 2014, the World Championship was held concurrently with the World Magic Cup, and it was initially announced that the 2015's World Championship and World Magic Cup would also share the same venue, but be held on separate weeks. However, it was later announced that these would be held at different locations and at different times.
From 2014 to 2019, the World Championship has been a 24-player event featuring 14 rounds of Swiss play (seven each on the first two days) before a cut to the top four players, where they on the last day of competition play best-of-five semifinals and final matches. The World Championship currently features Standard and Booster draft, though prior to the 2017 World Championship, it featured Modern as well. In the 2019 World Championship, all play was done through MTG Arena - draft pools were uploaded onto profiles and played. 
With the introduction of Magic: The Gathering Arena as a professional level medium in 2019, the system was revamped to a much more streamlined system; there would only be 16 players, much like the 2012 and 2013 Championships, and had the eight title winners over the previous season and eight at-large players, four from the Magic Pro League and four from outside it.
The 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic resulted in the partial 2020 Players Tour Season not holding a World Championship. That said, a small-field, split-format tournament was held under the name of the 2020 Season Grand Finals in the closing months of the 2020 season.
The 2021 World Championship included the Rivals League and used League Gauntlets as the qualifying tournaments. It took place on MTG Arena at the culmination of the 2020–2021 Pro season in October of 2021. When the League system was disbanded, the 2022 World Championship used a simplified qualification model, using Championship Top 6 places for immediate invites and two leaderboards using match points.
In 2022, post-COVID-19 pandemic and post-Magic esports, there was yet another restructuring as the World Championship returned to tabletop and the Premier Play program was installed. The most notable aspect of the restructuring was that the invitation list is expected to go into the triple digits, after a decade of 32 or fewer participants. It is also unusual in that it has a variable size, with an expected total of 121 players broken down into 45 Regional champions, 32 Pro Tour and Worlds Top 8 players, 12 Online finalists, and 32 Leaderboard players. This number could go up with extra 12-4s at the Pro Tour or multiple players at 32nd in AMPs or go down with redundant invites.
===Winners===
Magic: The Gathering World Champions	Magic: The Gathering World Champions	Magic: The Gathering World Champions
Year 	Winner 	Held in
1994 	Zak Dolan 	Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
1995 	Alexander Blumke 	Seattle, Washington, USA
1996 	Tom Chanpheng 	Seattle, Washington, USA
1997 	Jakub Slemr 	Seattle, Washington, USA
1998 	Brian Selden 	Seattle, Washington, USA
1999 	Kai Budde 	Yokohama, Japan
2000 	Jon Finkel 	Brussels, Belgium
2001 	Tom van de Logt 	Toronto, Ontario, Canada
2002 	Carlos Romão 	Sydney, Australia
2003 	Daniel Zink 	Berlin, Germany
2004 	Julien Nuijten 	San Francisco, California, USA
2005 	Katsuhiro Mori 	Yokohama, Japan
2006 	Makihito Mihara 	Paris, France
2007 	Uri Peleg 	New York City, New York, USA
2008 	Antti Malin 	Memphis, Tennessee, USA
2009 	André Coimbra 	Rome, Italy
2010 	Guillaume Matignon 	Chiba, Japan
2011 	Jun'ya Iyanaga 	San Francisco, California, USA
2012 	Yuuya Watanabe 	Seattle, Washington, USA
2013 	Shahar Shenhar 	Amsterdam, Netherlands
2014 	Shahar Shenhar 	Nice, France
2015 	Seth Manfield 	Seattle, Washington, USA
2016 	Brian Braun-Duin 	Seattle, Washington, USA
2017 	William Jensen 	Boston, Massachusetts, USA
2018 	Javier Dominguez 	Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
2019 	Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa 	Honolulu, Hawai'i, USA
2020 	- 	Not played
2021 	Yuta Takahashi 	Online (MTG Arena)
2022 	Nathan Steuer 	Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
2023 	Jean-Emmanuel Depraz 	Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
2024 	Javier Dominguez 	Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
2025 	TBA 	TBA
: In the form of the 2012 Players Championship
: The 2020 World Championship was not conducted due to the global COVID-19 pandemic
==Team World Champions==
The team world championship was held from 1995 until 2011, when it was replaced by the World Magic Cup.
Year	Country 	Players
1995	United States	Mark Justice, Henry Stern, Peter Leiher, Mike Long
1996	United States	Dennis Bentley, George Baxter, Mike Long, Matt Place
1997	Canada 	Gary Krakower, Michael Donais, Ed Ito, Gabriel Tsang
1998	United States	Matt Linde, Mike Long, Bryce Currence, Jon Finkel
1999	United States	Kyle Rose, John Hunka, Zvi Mowshowitz, Charles Kornblith
2000	United States	Jon Finkel, Chris Benafel, Frank Hernandez, Aaron Forsythe
2001	United States	Trevor Blackwell, Brian Hegstad, Eugene Harvey,
2002	Germany 	Mark Ziegner, Kai Budde, Felix Schneiders
2003	United States	Justin Gary, Gabe Walls, Joshua Wagner
2004	Germany 	Sebastian Zink, Torben Twiefel, Roland Bode
2005	Japan 	Ichiro Shimura, Takuma Morofuji, Masashi Oiso
2006	Netherlands 	Julien Nuijten, Kamiel Cornelissen, Robert van Medevoort
2007	Switzerland 	Nico Bohny, Manuel Bucher, Raphael Genari, Christoph Huber
2008	United States	Michael Jacob, Paul Cheon, Sam Black
2009	China 	Wu Tong, Bo Li, Zhiyang Zhang
2010	Slovakia 	Ivan Floch, Robert Jurkovic, Patrik Surab
2011	Japan 	Ryuuichirou Ishida, Tomoya Fujimoto, Makihito Mihara
==Worlds promos==
The Worlds cards are prizes for Standard tournament World Championship Viewing Parties at WPN Premium stores. The first was released in 2020. They are foil and alternate art.
* 2020 
==Player spotlight==
As of the 2018 World Championship the World Champion is eligible to be featured on a player spotlight card. While they won't design it, they will consult with R&D on its selection and will appear pictured in the art.
==References==
==External links==
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