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.
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.
Shuhei Nakamura is one of the most successful professional Magic: The Gathering players. He has reached the Top 8 of six Pro Tours and won seven Grands Prix, as well as being the 2008 Pro Player of the Year. In 2011, he was inducted into the Magic: The Gathering Hall of Fame.
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 2001–02 Pro Tour season was the seventh season of the Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour. On 18 August 2001 the season began with parallel Grand Prixs in Kobe and Denver. It ended on 18 August 2002 with the conclusion of the 2002 World Championship in Sydney. The season consisted of 33 Grand Prixs and 6 Pro Tours, held in New York, New Orleans, San Diego, Osaka, Nice, and Sydney. Also Master Series tournaments were held at four Pro Tours. At the end of the season Kai Budde was proclaimed Pro Player of the Year, winning the title by a record margin.
The 2002–03 Pro Tour season was the eighth season of the Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour. On 24 August 2002 the season began with Grand Prix Sapporo. It ended on 10 August 2003 with the conclusion of the 2003 World Championship in Berlin. The season consisted of 21 Grand Prixs and 6 Pro Tours, held in Boston, Houston, Chicago, Venice, Yokohama, and Berlin. Also Master Series tournaments were held at four Pro Tours. At the end of the season Kai Budde was proclaimed Pro Player of the Year for the third time in a row.
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 2005 Pro Tour season was the tenth season of the Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour. On 10 September 2004 the season began with Grand Prix Rimini. It ended on 4 December 2005 with the conclusion of the 2005 World Championship in Yokohama and was thus the longest Pro Tour season ever. The season consisted of 31 Grand Prixs and 7 Pro Tours, held in Columbus, Nagoya, Atlanta, Philadelphia, London, Los Angeles, and Yokohama. At the end of the season Kenji Tsumura was proclaimed Pro Player of the year as the first Japanese player. Also the first class of the Hall of Fame was inducted. The inductees were Jon Finkel, Darwin Kastle, Tommi Hovi, Alan Comer, and Olle Råde.
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.
Jelger Wiegersma is a Dutch Magic: The Gathering player. Though no longer a professional player, he still regularly attends Pro Tours. He won Pro Tour Seattle 2004 as a member of team Von Dutch with teammates Jeroen Remie and Kamiel Cornelissen. He also won two Grand Prix, in 2003 and 2008. In 2008, he was elected to the Magic: The Gathering 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.
The 1998–99 Pro Tour season was the fourth season of the Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour. It began on 5 September 1998 with Grand Prix Boston and ended on 8 August 1999 with the conclusion of 1999 World Championship in Tokyo. The season consisted of fourteen Grand Prix, and five Pro Tours, located in Chicago, Rome, Los Angeles, New York, and Tokyo. At the end of the season Kai Budde from Germany was awarded the Pro Player of the year title.
The 1999–2000 Pro Tour season was the fifth season of the Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour. It began on 3 September 1999 with Pro Tour Boston and ended on 6 August 2000 with the conclusion of 2000 World Championship in Brussels. The season consisted of twenty Grand Prixs, and six Pro Tours, located in Washington D.C., London, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Brussels. At the end of the season Bob Maher, Jr. was awarded the Pro Player of the year title.
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.
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.
Yuuya Watanabe (渡辺雄也) is a Japanese Magic: The Gathering player and former World Champion. With five Pro Tour top eights and 27 Grand Prix top eights, Watanabe is best known for his Rookie of the Year title in 2007, and his Player of the Year titles in 2009 and 2012. He is one of only three players to become Player of the Year more than once. He was elected to the Magic: The Gathering Hall of Fame in 2016, along with Owen Turtenwald, but removed in May 2019 after a cheating scandal involving marked card sleeves.
The 2010 Pro Tour season was the fifteenth season of the Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour. It began on 13 February 2010 with Grand Prix Oakland, and ended on 12 December 2010 with the conclusion of the 2010 World Championship in Chiba, Japan. The season consisted of eighteen Grand Prixs, and four Pro Tours, located in San Diego, San Juan, Amsterdam, and Chiba. Gabriel Nassif, Brian Kibler, and Bram Snepvangers were inducted into the Hall of Fame at the World Championship in Chiba. Although the season formally ended with the conclusion of the World Championship, the final title of season was not awarded until three months later. Guillaume Matignon and Brad Nelson tied for Player of the Year. The title was decided by a single match between the two at the 2011 Pro Tour in Paris, which Nelson won by four games to two.
The 2011 Pro Tour season was the sixteenth season of the Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour. It began on 22 January 2011 with Grand Prix Atlanta, and ended on 20 November 2011 with the conclusion of the 2011 World Championship in San Francisco. The season consisted of twenty Grands Prix, and four Pro Tours, located in Paris, Nagoya, Philadelphia, and San Francisco.
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.
Shuhei Nakamura 
Aaron Nicastri
Antti Malin 
