2025 World Championship
| 2025 World Championship | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Date | December 5-7, 2025 | ||||
| Location | Bellevue, Washington, USA | ||||
| Format | Avatar: The Last Airbender Booster Draft and Standard Constructed | ||||
| Prize pool | $1,000,000 | ||||
| Winner |
 Seth Manfield | ||||
| World Championships | |||||
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The Magic: the Gathering 2025 World Championship (also known as World Championship 31) is the 31st Magic World Championship and will be held at the end of the 2024–25 Pro Tour Season on December 5-7, 2025 at Bellevue, Washington, USA.[1][2] The event is closed to public spectators; only participants and commentary teams will be present.
Description
The formats for World Championship 30 are Avatar: The Last Airbender Booster Draft and Standard Constructed. 128 players were invited to compete for a prize pool of $1,000,000. 126 of them registered a deck.[3]
Qualification
- The Top 8 finishers from the 2024 World Championship.
- Javier Domínguez, Márcio Carvalho, Seth Manfield, Quinn Tonole, Ha Pham, Yoshihiko Ikawa, Kai Budde and Max Rappaport.
- The Top 2 finishers from the three MTG Arena Championships:
- Keisuke Sato and Mikko Airaksinen
- Kristoffer Lindqvist and Percy Fang
- Raffaele Mazza and Jan-Moritz Merkel
- The Top 2 finishers from the three Magic Online Premier Play Program seasons:
- Nam Dang and Stefan Schutz
- Charalampos Kikidis and Matthew Wright
- Ryan Waligora and Yuuki Ichikawa
- The Top 8 and other 36-pointers of each Pro Tour:
- Pro Tour Aetherdrift: Matt Nass, Kenta Harane, Zevin Faust, James Dimitrov, Yuchen Liu, Christopher Leonard, Lucas Duchow, Ian Robb, Ken Yukuhiro, Abe Schnake, Arne Huschenbeth, Vinícius Karam^
- Pro Tour Final Fantasy: Ian Robb^, Ken Yukuhiro^, Yuchen Liu^, Andy Garcia-Romo, David Rood, Toni Portolon, Christian Baker, Percy Fang^, Mitchell Tamblyn, Edgar Magalhaes, Sean Henry
- Pro Tour Edge of Eternities: Justin Schabel, Horiuchi Makoto, Mason Buonadonna, Francisco Sánchez, Mikko Airaksinen^, Jonny Guttman, Michael Debenedetto-Plummer^, Noé Offman, Alex Friedrichsen, Dylan Nollen
| The Regional Champions | Cycle 1 | Cycle 2 | Cycle 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Europe | Marc Tobiasch | Alexander Rohan | Jelco Bodewes |
| Europe 2nd | Sergio Giminez | Fernando Palmero | Ivan Lausevic |
| Brazil | Vinícius Karam | Pedro Perrini | Pedro Henrique Flores |
| South America | Adam Schwartz | Federico Giardini | Guillermo Sulimovich |
| Central America | Joaquin Roberto Soto Castillo | Javier Castellan | Mario Alejandro Flores Silva |
| USA-A | Cory Lack | Peter Husisian | Casey Miller |
| USA-A 2nd | Connor Mackenzie | Jackson Knorr | Michael Debenedetto -Plummer |
| USA-B | Jesse Robkin | Percy Fang^ | |
| USA-B 2nd | Corey Burkhart | Chris Botelho (Julian Korfine) | |
| Canada | Randall Litman | Simon Pinché | Linden Koot |
| Canada 2nd | Julien David | Max Dore | Rei Zhang |
| ANZ | James Moore | Thomas Bot | Jennifer-Rose Holloway |
| South-East Asia | Benedictus Budisanjaya | Quinton Lip Zhao Jian | Clement Choo |
| Japan | Tomoaki Ogasawara | No Ah Ma | Yasutaka Nagao |
| Japan 2nd | Tatsuro Asano | Masataka Hori | Akira Shibata |
| China | Chun Him To | Wang Kunrui | Yuxuan Zhang |
| Taiwan | Szu Yuan Chen | Shih Feng Lin | Samuel Chang |
Redundant invites are marked with ^.
- The top 32 ranked competitors that are not already invited to World Championship 31 in the Pro Tour Edge of Eternities Adjusted Match Points standing and all players tied with 32nd place in that standing.
- William Araujo, Adam Brace, Ryan Condon, Albert Cordobes, Matthew Costa, Derrick Davis, Marco Del Pivo, Jean-Emmanuel Depraz, Arch Dota, Reid Duke, Paul Green, Toru Inoue, Liam Kane, Alexander Kans, Eli Kassis, Andrei Klepatch, Matti Kuisma, Kenta Masukado, Zen Miyaji-Thorne, Masahide Moriyama, Shuhei Nakamura, Bassel Nasri, Gabriel Nassif, Simon Nielsen, Sam Pardee, Marc Peral, Thierry Ramboa, Josep Sanfeliu, Karl Sarap, Ben Stark, Bernardo Torres, Charles Wong and Shota Yasooka.[4]
Prizes
Competitors that finished in the top 8 received invitations to each Pro Tour and the World Championship in the 2025–26 Premier Play Season. Competitors that finish in 9th through 24th place will receive an invitation to the first Pro Tour in the 2025-2026 Season: Pro Tour Lorwyn Eclipsed.
There is a $1,000,000 prize pool, which is awarded to competitors based on their final standing in the tournament. First place received $100,000. All competitors received $4000 regardless of the final placing.[5]
Schedule
Swiss rounds
Friday, December 5
- Rounds 1-3: Avatar: The Last Airbender draft
- Rounds 4-7: Standard Constructed
Competitors with twelve (12) or more match points after Round 7 advance to Saturday's portion of the competition.
Saturday, December 6
- Rounds 8-10: Avatar: The Last Airbender draft
- Rounds 11-14: Standard Constructed
The top 8 players advance to Sunday.
Play-offs
Sunday, December 7
- Standard Constructed Top 8 single elimination
- Best three-out-of-five, sideboarding after Game 2.
Day 1
Before the World Championship, the bans of Vivi Ornitier, Proft's Eidetic Memory and Screaming Nemesis had reshaped the metagame, while the new cards from Avatar: The Last Airbender opened the door for fresh archetypes. While Red is still prevalent as a color, its dominance since Bloomburrow had finally waned, with Blue now making up the backbone of all the top decks, with 56 players of the field using majority Izzet decks. However, there were multiple builds of Izzet, with the Looting variant using the remaining structure of the Cauldron deck and Prowess variant using the Cori-Steel Cutter builds. Most importantly, Accumulate Wisdom's draw-three clause was the backbone for the Izzet Lessons deck, the frontrunner for the tournament. The first nonblue deck was Golgari Ouroboroid with five pilots, and related to the weakness of Black, Dimir Midrange was a surprise loser from the new set release despite having no cards banned from it; White cards only appear as support or combo pieces. Boomerang Basics became the successor to This Town Ain't Big Enough, being an effective way to return Stormchaser's Talent and revitalized the Otters combo deck in second place, alongside being a Lesson and a good Prowess enabler. Rounding out the top three, Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius lets Airbending become a free blink, becoming a combo finish in the Bant Airbending deck.[3]
Reigning Champion Javier Domínguez was the featured draft, who also managed to break the coverage curse by playing for but losing the pod finals against Derrick Davis. Davis, on Izzet Lessons, would later be the only undefeated player on the day. Incidentally, the most recently crowned Pro Tour champion, Michael DeBenedetto-Plummer, would win his pod. Ian Robb and Yuchen Liu, twin Top 8 players this year, would fail to make the second day, taking them out of Player of the Year contention. A well-rounded selection of decks would make up the top eight players after day 1, with the biggest names being Sam Pardee, Rei Zhang, Kenta Harane and Toni Portolan.[6]
| Rank | Player | Points |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Derrick Davis
|
21 |
| 2 |  Kenta Harane
|
18 |
| 3 | Charles Wong
|
18 |
| 4 | Rei Zhang
|
18 |
| 5 |  Toni Portolan
|
18 |
| 6 | Masataka Hori
|
18 |
| 7 | Sam Pardee
|
18 |
| 8 | Andy Garcia-Romo
|
16 |
Day 2
Only 61 Players made the cut to Day 2. Overnight leader Davis kept the led running, losing in draft only to the pod winner Sam Pardee in Round 10. They would play off in Round 11 for a Top 8 slot, with Pardee's Monument to Endurance-powered Lesson deck overpowering Davis's Eddymurk Crab build. Seth Manfield and Ken Yukuhiro would do the same in the following rounds, but Davis would finally make it in over Mitchell Tamblyn in the final round. Masataka Hori and Toni Portolan would suffer similar fates, both losing multiple win-and-in matches: the former lost to Jean-Emmanuel Depraz, Shaun Henry and Matthew Nass, the latter coming 10th; Portolon would lose to Arne Huschenbeth and Akira Shibata. Michael DeBenedetto-Plummer would land at 9th, also at 30 points.[7]
Ken Yukuhiro, leading in the Player of the Year Race, won his award once Portolan was eliminated from contention in Round 14.
Day 3
The final day of the Championship was the Top 8. The format was Standard, with the same decks from Day 2.[8][9] At the end of the day, the finals saw a mirror match of Izzet Lessons between Seth Manfield — who was looking to become Magic's third two-time World Champion in history — and Akira Shibata, a Regional Championship qualifier on an incredible run into the biggest match of his career. It was Manfield who prevailed.[10][11]
| Quarterfinals | Semifinals | Finals | |||||||||||
| 1 | Sam Pardee
|
1 | |||||||||||
| 8 | Akira Shibata
|
3 | |||||||||||
| 8 | Akira Shibata
|
3 | |||||||||||
| 4 |  Shaun Henry
|
1 | |||||||||||
| 4 | Shaun Henry
|
3 | |||||||||||
| 5 |  Arne Huschenbeth
|
0 | |||||||||||
| 8 | Akira Shibata
|
0 | |||||||||||
| 3 | Seth Manfield
|
3 | |||||||||||
| 3 | Seth Manfield
|
3 | |||||||||||
| 6 | Ken Yukuhiro
|
0 | |||||||||||
| 3 | Seth Manfield
|
3 | |||||||||||
| 7 | Derreck Davis
|
0 | |||||||||||
| 2 |  Jean-Emmanuel Depraz
|
2 | |||||||||||
| 7 | Derreck Davis
|
3 | |||||||||||
Final results
| Place | Player | Prize | Points | Standard deck | Avatar: The Last Airbender draft record |
Standard record |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Seth Manfield
|
$100,000 | 36 | Izzet Lessons | 4-2 | 8-0 |
| 2 | Akira Shibata
|
$50,000 | 30 | Izzet Lessons | 5-1 | 5-3 |
| 3 | Shaun Henry
|
$25,000 | 33 | Temur Otters | 5-1 | 6-2 |
| 4 | Derrick Davis
|
$25,000 | 30 | Izzet Lessons | 5-1 | 5-3 |
| 5 | Sam Pardee
|
$20,000 | 39 | Izzet Lessons | 5-1 | 8-0 |
| 6 | Jean-Emmanuel Depraz
|
$20,000 | 36 | Izzet Looting | 5-1 | 7-1 |
| 7 | Arne Huschenbeth
|
$20,000 | 33 | Temur Otters | 4-2 | 7-1 |
| 8 | Ken Yukuhiro
|
$20,000 | 33 | Sultai Reanimator | 4-2 | 7-1 |
References
- ↑ Wizards of the Coast (October 16, 2024). "The 2025 MagicCon and Pro Tour Schedule". Magic.gg.
- ↑ Play Magic (March 10, 2025). "MTGWorlds 31 will be in Bellevue, WA on December 5-7, 2025.". Bluesky.
- ↑ a b Frank Karsten (December 4, 2025). "Magic World Championship 31 Standard Metagame Breakdown". Magic.gg.
- ↑ Wizards of the Coast (July 11, 2025). "Magic World Championship 31 Invitation List". Magic.gg.
- ↑ Wizards of the Coast (July 11, 2025). "World Championship 31 Fact Sheet for Competitors". Magic.gg.
- ↑ Corbin Hosler (December 6, 2025). "Magic World Championship 31 Day One Highlights". Magic.gg.
- ↑ Corbin Hosler (December 7, 2025). "Magic World Championship 31 Day Two Highlights". Magic.gg.
- ↑ Wizards of the Coast (December 7, 2025). "Magic World Championship 31 Top 8 Players and Decks". Magic.gg.
- ↑ Corbin Hosler (December 8, 2025). "Magic World Championship 31 Top 8 Highlights". Magic.gg.
- ↑ Corbin Hosler (December 8, 2025). "Finals of Magic World Championship 31". Magic.gg.
- ↑ Frank Karsten (December 11, 2025). "Metagame Mentor: Standard Win Rates and Lessons from Magic World Championship 31". Magic.gg.