Master Duel World Championship

The Master Duel World Championship is an international, invitational Master Duel tournament held annually between the top-ranked Master Duel players of various countries. It is held alongside the World Championship for the physical card game. The first one was held in 2023, as this was the first World Championship since the release of Master Duel in early 2022.

What makes the Master Duel World Championship unique is that it's a team tournament.
Each of the three players per team gets to bring two decks to the World Championship and choose between the decks for each duel. The decks have to be built with a shared card pool, meaning that, for instance, a card that is Semi-Limited can only be used twice across all six decks of the team. The teams can however designate three "shared cards" which are able to be used at their maximum capacity in every single deck.^[1]

The most common way to qualify for the World Champonship 2023, which was the only option in 2023, is via the Master Duel World Championship Qualifier.

In October 2023, Konami introduced several new methods of qualifying for the World Championship. Firstly, the winning team from the previous World Championship is now guaranteed a spot at the tournament. Secondly, the Duelist Cups are now also part of the qualification process. These had existed previously, but had not offered any non-digital rewards. The winners of each Duelist Cup now also receives a World Championship invite and can choose two teammates. Additionally, "Season Points" were introduced which players can collect by performing well in the second stages of both the Duelist Cups and the annual World Championship Qualifier. Throughout the season, players from the same region can form teams of three, and the teams with the highest accumulated points also qualify for the World Championship.^[2]
Players can form a team at any point in the competitive season. They are however encouraged to do so early as each existing team receives additional "Season Points" during each Duelist Cup and WCQ. Because of the new qualification methods, the 2024 World Championship was bigger than the 2023 one, with 12 teams instead of 8.

In the first two iterations of the tournament, the exact same teams faced off in the finals, something which had never happened before in the history of Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championships.