Duelists descend on Paris for the Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championships 2025

Yesterday, in Paris’s Maison de la Mutualité, the Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championships 2025 came to their conclusion, celebrating players across the physical and digital TCG, and revealing many exciting projects and collaborations for the future. This is the first time since 2019 that the Championships have occurred in Europe.

Alongside the physical TCG, Konami crowned winners across both of Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links‘ game modes and Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel this weekend. Germany’s Philipp Thomas took home the title of Speed Duel Champion, while Taiwan’s kama3 conquered Rush Duel. Unlike most mobile card game competitions, the Master Duel Championships are a team sport, and 2025 saw Ragnarok take down Chaiba Corp in a dramatic 3v3 showdown.

While he couldn’t be there in person, the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, opened the ceremony via a recorded message. He said, “I know that this is an important day for Yu-Gi-Oh! and the entire world of TCGs, which is gathered in France and it is a great source of pride for us to host the World Championships of your discipline, to have all the enthusiasts from around the world gathered in France,” while flashing a classic Blue Eyes White Dragon card.

At the end of the competition, Konami announced that the Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championships are returning to Tokyo, Japan, in 2026, though it hasn’t confirmed the exact venue yet. The company also revealed an upcoming crossover between Yu-Gi-Oh! and its football game, eFootball, featuring France’s Neymar Jr. The trailer doesn’t give much away, but I’m really intrigued to see how Konami manages to integrate these very different mobile game experiences with each other.

Yu-Gi-Oh! has a long history, and a lot of the new card game mechanics can be confusing, so if you’d rather experience a blast from the past, you should check out our Yu-Gi-Oh! Early Days Collection review. Alternatively, you could dive into some different digital TCGs with our Pokémon TCG Live decks and Pokémon TCG Pocket decks guides.