World Championship 30 Viewer's Guide

October 14, 2024

Rich Hagon

The biggest week of the season is nearly here: Magic World Championship 30.

Over 100 qualifying players from around the globe will converge on Las Vegas, Nevada, for the crown jewel of competitive Magic. Across four decades, the best and the brightest of each season have met one last time to determine the best of the best and claim two words that resonate with every corner of Magic's kingdom and beyond: World Champion.

What Is World Championship 30?

World Championship 30 is the biggest competitive Magic event of the season. Players have qualified for the event through a variety of means, from top finishes at Pro Tours, MTG Arena events, Magic Online events, and more. Their unifying trait is that they're all amazing competitors, and they'll all be playing to win. The invitation list is available online (and subject to change).

Alongside the prestige of the World Championships, there's $1,000,000 in prizes up for grabs, alongside the World Championship 30 trophy. All competitors will receive $4,000 regardless of how they place.

How Can I Follow the Event?

World Championship 30 will be streamed all three days of the event, October 25–27, at twitch.tv/magic. Follow the players, their fans, and all the coverage at @PlayMTG or with the hashtag #MTGWorlds.

On Friday and Saturday—October 25 and 26—the stream starts at 2 p.m. ET (8 p.m. CEST / 3 a.m. JST) with three rounds of Duskmourn: House of Horror Draft followed by four rounds of Standard Constructed.

On Sunday, October 27, the stream starts at 1 p.m. ET (6 p.m. CET / 2 a.m. JST) with all four quarterfinals matches, followed by the semifinals matches, and concluding with the finals of World Championship 30.

While competitors begin their Friday and Saturday early on-site at MagicCon: Las Vegas, broadcast begins later in the day at 8 p.m. CEST (2 p.m. ET) with a featured drafter to follow into their Round 1 gameplay. As we continue the broadcast, we'll catch up to the tournament, showing a full feature match from every round and reducing downtime until we're pacing live gameplay on a short delay.

The Sunday Top 8 playoff broadcast begins at 6 p.m. CET (1 p.m. ET), showing a full quarterfinal match and then as many games from other quarterfinal matches as possible, moving on to a full semifinal match (and as much of the remaining semifinals match) then the complete finals.

What's at Stake?

There's more than just the World Championship up for grabs, as enticing as that may be. A dazzling, season-long battle for supremacy will conclude as the eight remaining players step into the ring to go toe to toe with friend and foe alike. Their prize? Player of the Year, a moment to cherish, and claiming the Kai Budde Player of the Year trophy.

Whether it's the best weekend or the best season of their lives, the course remains the same. They'll set out Friday morning with three packs of Duskmourn: House of Horror Play Boosters sitting in front of them. Across 30 minutes of silent, tense, pivotal picks, they'll assemble a deck of at least 40 cards, ready to fight their way through assorted Glimmers, Spirits, Rooms, Clowns, Toys, Nightmares, and a plane-devouring Demon called Valgavoth. To ensure fairness across this horrific landscape, they'll face only players from their own table of eight, those who have faced the same challenges staring out at them from the 24 packs at the table.

Survive the night (or rather, the three rounds) and players will turn their attention to a Standard enviornment full of power, finesse, and the opportunity for something fresh to turn the tables on an unsuspecting opponent. Four rounds fill out Day One, with the first, merciless guillotine striking down all those without a losing record. Four wins is the Magic number on Day One to keep the dream alive.

Saturday sees the same structure. There are three rounds of Draft followed by four rounds of Standard. But this time the goal isn't merely survival, it's a quest to reach the final day of the 2024 season by making the Top 8. Everyone who starts out Saturday has a shot.

And then it's the biggest day of the year, with Standard again the format as the Top 8 slug it out to determine the destiny of those mighty titles. It's a straight knock-out across quarterfinals, semifinals, and the final itself, with best-of-five games determining who advances. Sideboarding takes place after the first two games of each match on Sunday.

That's our landscape, but who is going to end up on top of the mountain?

The World Championship favorites are, not coincidentally, the top contenders for Player of the Year. Let's start with those magnificent eight who could theoretically go on to claim the Kai Budde trophy. I say "theoretically" because there are some mighty unlikely outcomes needed for some of those eight. That's not the case for our standout leader coming into the final weekend, Simon Nielsen. A semifinal appearance, and the Danish superstar can't be caught. His achievements for the season include making the finals of Pro Tour Murders at Karlov Manor, Top 32 at Pro Tour Thunder Junction, and winning Pro Tour Modern Horizons 3. Yep, that's a pretty ridiculous season, especially in addition to his three Top 8 appearances last season. There's no doubt Nielsen is by far the single most likely person to win Player of the Year. But that doesn't mean he is guaranteed to win. Yes, he is amazing. Yes, he routinely succeeds. Yes, he has a great team and support network. Yes, yes, yes.

But!

Making the Top 8 is hard. His 114 potential opponents will not have "let Simon Nielsen become Player of the Year" on their round one to-do list. If Nielsen fails to reach Sunday or, unlikely as it may be, fails to reach Saturday, then we have ourselves a ball game. The other seven Player of the Year contenders will likely need to reach Sunday to have a chance of outpacing Nielsen, but, once there, they'd be three matches away from a historic double, claiming both the World Champion and Player of the Year titles in one fell swoop. Here are those seven contenders, alongside their highlights from this season.

Seth Manfield
Currently: 2nd
Season Highlights: Winner of Pro Tour Murders at Karlov Manor
Titles: Winner of Mythic Invitational 2020, Pro Tour Ixalan, and the 2015 World Championship

Jason Ye
Currently: 3rd
Season Highlights: Back-to-back Top 8s at Pro Tour Thunder Junction and Pro Tour Modern Horizons 3

Javier Dominguez
Currently: 4th
Season Highlights: Top 8 of Pro Tour Modern Horizons 3
Titles: Winner of the 2018 World Championship, Mythic Championship V, and Spain National Championship 2006

Sam Pardee
Currently: 5th
Season Highlights: Top 8 of Pro Tour Murders at Karlov Manor and Pro Tour Modern Horizons 3
Titles: Winner of Strixhaven Championship 2021 and Challenger Gauntlet 2021

Eli Kassis
Currently: 6th
Season Highlights: Top 8 of Pro Tour Modern Horizons 3
Titles: Winner of Neon Dynasty Championship 2022

Sean Goddard
Currently: 7th
Season Highlights: Top 8 of Pro Tour Thunder Junction

Yuta Takahashi
Currently: 8th
Season Highlights: Top 8 of Pro Tour Thunder Junction
Titles: Winner of Magic World Championship XXVII

That's an incredible line-up of talent, featuring three former World Champions in Manfield, Dominguez, and Takahashi alongside two perennial contenders in Pardee and Kassis. With Ye and Goddard, we also have two players ascending toward upper echelons of Magic at a rapid rate. And they're all waiting in the wings for Nielsen to slip up and give them the opportunity.

So, who else should you watch out for vying for the World Championship crown? Here's another dozen who could claim the title.

The odds of a Danish winner are dramatically improved with the addition of Christoffer Larsen, who finished 3rd at Pro Tour Murders at Karlov Manor. In the online world, Wouter Noordzij claimed victory in Arena Championship 6, while Argentina's Sebastián Pozzo qualified via the MOCS Showcase. The Top 8 from the last World Championship added Hall of Famers Reid Duke and Willy Edel to the field.

Two standouts from the Regional Championship scene are Jonathan Lobo Melamed and William Bossaneli Araujo. Both have Regional Championship titles and seven Regional Championship Top 8 appearances between them. The field is further strengthened by qualifiers from the season-long Match Points. This brings us draft savant Márcio Carvalho, former Pro Tour winners like Samuele Estratti and Alexander Hayne, plus Japanese Hall of Famers Shuhei Nakamura and Shota Yasooka.

And there's one more name to mention before I go—defending World Champion Jean-Emmanuel Depraz. With a Top 8 at Pro Tour Murders of Karlov Manor, a World Championship title, and a World Championship finals appearance, Depraz can't be discounted. Have I sneakily saved the actual best until last? To find out, make sure you join us at twitch.tv/magic on October 25–27, 2025.

When Will World Championship 30 Decklists Be Published?

Standard Constructed decklists for the tournament will be published on the World Championship 30 event page on Friday, June 28, at the beginning of Round 4 gameplay.

All Duskmourn: House of Horror Draft decklists will not be published.

You can watch coverage for World Championship 30 each day here at Magic.gg and at twitch.tv/magic.

Who Are the Casters?

Can I Co-Stream the Event?

Following Twitch's Content Sharing Guidelines, you can co-stream the World Championship 30 broadcast from twitch.tv/magic using OBS or XSplit. This allows anyone on Twitch to cover the event in their voice and with their community. To be clear, co-streamed content is not endorsed by Wizards, and we expect anyone who participates in co-streaming to follow Wizards's Fan Content Policy.

What Do Players Win?

Competitors that finish in the Top 8 receive invitations for each Pro Tour and the World Championship 31 taking place in the 2024–25 season. All players compete for their share of $1,000,000 in prizes, with the World Champion winning $100,000. All competitors will receive at least $4,000 regardless of the final placing.

A full prize table will be published the week of October 21, 2024.