The Magic: The Gathering World Championships(Worlds) have been held annually since 1994. It is the most important tournament in the game of Magic: The Gathering, offering cash prizes of up to $100,000 to the winners. With the exception of the first edition, Worlds is an invitation-only event, and from 1996 to 2011 World was the last event of each Pro Tour season. The invitees were mostly top finishers from the National championships, the top-ranked players of the DCI and high-level pro players. Since 2012 the World Championships are held after the season and the most successful 16 or 24 players have been invited to the tournament.
Gabriel Nassif is a French professional card player. He is known for his continuous success on the Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour and was the 2004 Pro Tour Player of the Year. He also enjoys playing poker, having moderate success at the World Series of Poker in recent years. In 2010, Nassif was inducted into the Magic: The Gathering Hall of Fame.
Raphaël Lévy is a professional Magic: The Gathering player. He was inducted to the Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour Hall of Fame in November 2006. He is the first player to have been inducted while active on the Pro Tour. He is one of only six players to have won a Grand Prix on three different continents. He's holding the second most lifetime Pro Points behind Shuhei Nakamura.
Kenji Tsumura is a professional Magic: The Gathering player from Japan. He is one of only eight players to have reached the top eight of a Pro Tour more than five times.
Tomoharu Saitou is one of the most successful professional Magic: The Gathering players and the owner of Hareruya Store in Tokyo.
The 2000–01 Pro Tour season was the sixth season of the Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour. On 23 September 2000 the season began with parallel Grand Prixs in Sapporo and Porto. It ended on 12 August 2001 with the conclusion of the 2001 World Championship in Toronto. The season consisted of 27 Grand Prixs and 6 Pro Tours, held in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Barcelona, and Toronto. Also special Master Series tournaments were held at four Pro Tours. These tournaments featured huge cash prizes, but were open to only 32 players. At the end of the season Kai Budde was proclaimed Pro Player of the Year, making him the only player to win the title more than once.
The 2003–04 Pro Tour season was the ninth season of the Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour. On 23 August 2003 the season began with parallel Grand Prixs in Yokohama and London. It ended on 5 September 2004 with the conclusion of the 2004 World Championship in San Francisco. Beginning with this season Wizards of the Coast moved the Pro Tour schedule farther backwards in the year to synchronize it with the calendar year. The season consisted of 26 Grand Prixs and 7 Pro Tours, held in Boston, New Orleans, Amsterdam, Kobe, San Diego, Seattle, and San Francisco. Also the Master Series tournaments were discontinued and replaced by payout at the end of the year based on the Pro Player of the year standings. At the end of the season Gabriel Nassif was proclaimed Pro Player of the year, the first player after Kai Budde's three-year-domination period, and also the first player to win the title without winning a Pro Tour in the same season.
The 2006 Pro Tour season was the eleventh season of the Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour. On 18 December 2005 the season began with parallel Grand Prixs in Lille and Charlotte. It ended on 3 December 2006 with the conclusion of the 2006 World Championship in Paris. The season consisted of 22 Grand Prixs and 5 Pro Tours, held in Honolulu, Prague, Charleston, Kobe, and Paris. At the end of the season Shouta Yasooka from Japan was proclaimed Pro Player of the year. At the Worlds in Paris the second class of the Hall of Fame was inducted. The inductees were Bob Maher, Jr., Dave Humpherys, Raphaël Lévy, Gary Wise, and Rob Dougherty.
The 2008 Pro Tour season was the thirteenth season of the Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour. It began on 15 December 2007, with Grand Prix Stuttgart, and ended on 14 December 2008, with the 2008 World Championship in Memphis. The season consisted of twenty-one Grand Prixs, and four Pro Tours, located in Kuala Lumpur, Hollywood, Berlin, and Memphis. The Grand Prixs from June until August were designated Summer Series Grand Prixs, awarding more prizes and additional Pro Points. At the end of the season, Shuhei Nakamura became the fourth consecutive Japanese player to win Pro Player of the year. Dirk Baberowski, Michael Turian, Jelger Wiegersma, Olivier Ruel, and Ben Rubin were inducted into the Hall of Fame.
The 2009 Pro Tour season was the fourteenth season of the Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour. It began on 17 January 2009 with Grand Prix Los Angeles, and ended on 22 November 2009 with the conclusion of the 2009 World Championship in Rome. The season consisted of nineteen Grand Prixs, and four Pro Tours, located in Kyoto, Honolulu, Austin, and Rome. At the end of the season, Yuuya Watanabe was awarded the Pro Player of the Year, making him the first player to win both that title and the Rookie of the Year title which he had won two years prior. Frank Karsten, Kamiel Cornelissen, and Antoine Ruel were inducted into the Hall of Fame at the world championships in Rome.
Luis Scott-Vargas, commonly known as LSV, is a professional Magic: the Gathering player from Oakland, California, USA, currently living in Denver, Colorado. His accomplishments include fifteen Grand Prix Top 8s and ten Pro Tour Top 8s. In 2013 he was inducted into the Magic: The Gathering Hall of Fame. As well as being a prominent player of the game, LSV is also known for writing about the game. He was a writer for StarCityGames.com before becoming the editor and vice president for ChannelFireball.com, a Magic: The Gathering shop and strategy website. LSV still writes for ChannelFireball but ended his tenure as editor in 2012 to work as a game designer at Dire Wolf Digital, specifically on Eternal, and in 2021 LSV joined Good Luck Games to work on Storybook Brawl.
Frank Karsten is a Dutch Magic: The Gathering player. His achievements include three Pro Tour Top 8 appearances, including a second-place finish at the 2005 World Championships, and seven Grand Prix Top 8s. He is a member of the Magic: The Gathering Hall of Fame. Karsten is considered one of the game's foremost analytical minds and writers. He has since been considered mostly retired from Magic Pro Play, and has become a writer for Wizards' Magic event coverage.
Antoine Ruel is a professional Magic: The Gathering player. He has reached the top eight at the Pro Tour four times, including a win in Los Angeles in 2005. With eighteen Grand Prix top eights, he is among the most successful Grand Prix players of all time. In 2009, Ruel joined his brother Olivier in the Magic: The Gathering Hall of Fame.
Tsuyoshi Ikeda is a Japanese Magic: The Gathering player. His success include four top eights at the Pro Tour level, and six on the Grand Prix level, including one win. He is ranked 12th on lifetime pro points.
Brian McCormick Kibler is an American collectible card game player, game designer, and streamer. In 2016 Kibler helped design Drawing Dead. Previously, he designed Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer with Justin Gary, Rob Dougherty and John Fiorillo, and worked on Chaotic and SolForge and was the lead designer of the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game. As of 2016, he is a design consultant for Eternal, in addition to streaming and casting Hearthstone and certain associated tournaments.
William "Huey" Jensen is an American Magic: The Gathering player. He won Pro Tour Boston 2003, and has finished in the top 8 of four additional Pro Tours. He also has 24 Grand Prix top eights, including six wins. Jensen is one of the few players to have beaten Kai Budde in the elimination rounds of a Pro Tour. In 2013 he was voted into the Hall of Fame. He is the current record holder of most Grand Prix top eight finishes within a single season, with eight in 2013–14. He is also the 2017 Magic World Champion.
Martin Jůza is a Czech Magic: The Gathering player. Over the course of his career, Jůza has won the Czech national championship, made the top eight of a Pro Tour three times, and won four Grand Prix tournaments.
Patrick Chapin is an American Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour player and a game designer for Eternal at Dire Wolf Digital.
Paul Rietzl is an American Magic: The Gathering player. His greatest success was his win at Pro Tour Amsterdam in 2010, but his resume includes three more Pro Tour top eights, and thirteen Grand Prix top eights, including two wins. He was inducted into the Magic: The Gathering Hall of Fame in 2014.
Reid Duke is an American Magic: The Gathering player from Sugar Loaf, New York. He won the Magic: The Gathering Online Championship in 2011. His best finishes include three Pro Tour Top 8s, at Pro Tour Journey Into Nyx, Pro Tour Eldritch Moon, and Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan, a runner-up finish at the 2013 World Championships, and wins at Grand Prix Nashville 2012, Grand Prix Miami 2013, Grand Prix Portland 2014, Grand Prix Oakland 2016, Grand Prix Louisville 2017, and Grand Prix Cleveland.
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