| Year | Winner | Held in |
|---|---|---|
| 1994 | Zak Dolan | Milwaukee, WI, United States |
| 1995 | Alexander Blumke | Seattle, WA, United States |
| 1996 | Tom Chanpheng | Seattle, WA, United States |
| 1997 | Jakub Slemr | Seattle, WA, United States |
| 1998 | Brian Selden | Seattle, WA, United States |
| 1999 | Kai Budde | Yokohama, Japan |
| 2000 | Jon Finkel | Brussels, Belgium |
| 2001 | Tom van de Logt | Toronto, ON, Canada |
| 2002 | Carlos Romão | Sydney, Australia |
| 2003 | Daniel Zink | Berlin, Germany |
| 2004 | Julien Nuijten | San Francisco, CA, United States |
| 2005 | Katsuhiro Mori | Yokohama, Japan |
| 2006 | Makihito Mihara | Paris, France |
| 2007 | Uri Peleg | New York City, NY, United States |
| 2008 | Antti Malin | Memphis, TN, United States |
| 2009 | André Coimbra | Rome, Italy |
| 2010 | Guillaume Matignon | Chiba, Japan |
| 2011 | Jun'ya Iyanaga | San Francisco, CA, United States |
| 2012 | Yuuya Watanabe* | Seattle, WA, United States |
| 2013 | Shahar Shenhar (1) | Amsterdam, Netherlands |
| 2014 | Shahar Shenhar (2) | Nice, France |
| 2015 | Seth Manfield | Seattle, WA, United States |
| 2016 | Brian Braun-Duin | Seattle, WA, United States |
| 2017 | William Jensen | Boston, MA, United States |
| 2018 | Javier Dominguez (1) | Las Vegas, NV, United States |
| 2019 | Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa | Honolulu, HI, United States |
| 2021 | Yuta Takahashi | MTG Arena |
| 2022 | Nathan Steuer | Las Vegas, NV, United States (on MTG Arena) |
| 2023 | Jean-Emmanuel Depraz | Las Vegas, NV, United States |
| 2024 | Javier Dominguez (2) | Las Vegas, NV, United States |
| * Watanabe won the Players Championship | ||
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,[according to whom?] 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.
After the first five World Championships were all held in the United States, Worlds have since been held in Japan, Australia and various countries in Europe. Besides the main event Worlds were always a huge gathering of Magic players, who came to watch the pros and compete in side events.
After the 2011 season, the World Championship was briefly replaced by the Magic Players Championship. The top 16 pro players selected due to various criteria were invited to the Players Championship. In 2013 the tournament was renamed to 'World Championship' once again. From 2014 to 2018 the tournament was expanded to 24 competitors, but is going back to 16 players for the 2019 Worlds.
The large World Championships, held until 2011, also included a national team portion where the top players from each National Championship engaged in a separate competition. The decision to abandon large World Championships would have left the community without such an event. In part due to heavy demand by the players, Wizards of the Coast decided to create a replacement after initially abandoning the national team competition. A new team competition, the World Magic Cup was held annually from 2012 to 2017.
The most successful contestants are Shahar Shenhar and Javier Dominguez who have won the Worlds twice. In the team portion the United States are by far the most successful country.