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List of Magic: The Gathering national champions


rvv The Magic: The Gathering national champions are the players with the most Pro Points at the end of a Pro Tour season. The title is thus awarded annually. At the annual World Magic Cup the national champion captains his nation's team.

Originally the national champions were the winners of the national championships (Nationals). Nationals took place around the world usually in summer, but were discontinued after 2011 when Wizards of the Coast restructured their Magic: The Gathering organized play program. Eligibility to play in a national championship was determined on residence instead of nationality. In some countries open nationals were held, meaning that any eligible player could compete in this tournament. Countries with larger populations of Magic players usually held invite-only nationals, requiring eligible players to qualify. Nationals as tournament events had been held since 1995 and were last held in 67 countries. As of 2015 National Champions are determined in 73 nations.

National champions were automatically qualified for the World Championship, held in the same year. In countries with invitation-only nationals the Top 4 finishers were invited to the World Championship. The Magic World Championship was also abandoned after 2011 along with the national championships. The World Championship was replaced by the Magic Players Championship and the World Magic Cup.

While the countries with smaller populations of Magic players held open entry Nationals in most countries it was necessary to qualify for the Nationals. This was usually done in one of four ways: Players who finished in the Top 8 of the previous Nationals were automatically qualified as were Level 2 Pro Players (roughly equivalent to Silver level). Further, the top 25/35/75/100 ranked players in the corresponding country were invited to the Nationals; the exact number of players thus chosen depending on the number of active tournament players in the country. Finally, it was possible to qualify via qualifier tournaments. Some of these qualifier tournaments were usually held at the eve of the Nationals. These were often called "Grinders".


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