Introduction
Konami have officially announced details on the World Championship 2026 Ruleset, which will take place on August 28th - 30th in Ariake, Japan! Here's what you need to know, straight from Konami's official website!
NEW RULE CHANGE: Each team can designate up to 5 different cards as "Shared Cards", instead of the 3 cards from previous World Championship events.
General Information
The Yu-Gi-Oh! MASTER DUEL WCS 2025 Finals will be a series of battles between teams of 3. There will be 12 teams fighting for the title of champion: the winning team from last year, plus 3 teams that earned their places through the Duelist Cup, 6 through the Regional Qualifiers, and 2 through Season Points.
The Finals consist of the 1st Stage and Final Tournament. The 1st Stage is a round-robin tournament with teams split into two groups. Two teams from each group will qualify for the Final Tournament
- A match between two teams is called a "round." A round consists of each player playing one Duel against everyone on the opposing team.
- Each round consists of three sets of three simultaneous Duels.
During rounds, players can talk with their teammates and watch their Duels after finishing their own Duels. However, they cannot watch other teams' Duels or listen to other teams' conversations.
The winner of a round is the team that won the most Duels. However, if a team has won five or more Duels by the end of the second set, and has therefore already won the round, the third set will not be played, and all Duels in the third set will be counted as wins for the round-winning team. If the number of Duels won is tied, the round-winning team will be decided by a Duel between the team representatives.
Deck Building
All Decks must follow the Forbidden/Limited List effective as of August 24th 2026 12:59 JST and consist only of cards available on that date.
Each player can use up to two Decks and can choose which of the two to use for each Duel. (Six Decks per team in total.) - There can be at most three copies of each card across all of each team's Decks. If a card is Limited or Semi-Limited, only one or two copies respectively can be included across all of each team's Decks. This rule also applies to any card whose name is treated as that of another card.
For Example:
- If you put 2 copies of Loading... (not on the Forbidden & Limited List) in 1 of your Decks, you can only include 1 copy of Loading... across your other Decks.
- If you put 3 copies of Loading... (not on the Forbidden & Limited List) in 1 of your Decks, you cannot put any more copies in any of your other Decks.
- If you put 1 copy of Loading... (which is Semi-Limited) in 1 of your Decks, you can only include 1 copy of Loading... across your other Decks.
- If you put 1 copy of Loading... (which is Limited) in 1 of your Decks, you cannot include it in your other Decks. If you put 3 copies of Loading... (which is treated as "Umi") in 1 of your Decks, you cannot include "Umi" in any of your Decks.
- Cards you can only obtain 1 or 2 copies of in-game can only be included up to that number across all of your Decks. For example, if you put 1 copy of Loading... (only 1 copy obtainable in-game) in 1 of your Decks, you cannot include it in your other Decks.
NEW: Each team can designate up to 5 different cards as "Shared Cards". If a card is designated as a Shared Card, up to 3 copies can be included in each Deck. If a Shared Card is Limited, only 1 copy can be included in each Deck. If a Shared Card is Semi-Limited, up to 2 copies can be included in each Deck.