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.

Magic: The Gathering is a tabletop and digital collectible card game created by Richard Garfield. Released in 1993 by Wizards of the Coast, Magic was the first trading card game and had approximately fifty million players as of February 2023. Over twenty billion Magic cards were produced in the period from 2008 to 2016, during which time it grew in popularity. As of the 2022 fiscal year, Magic generates over $1 billion in revenue annually.