The 2014 Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG World Championship is this weekend in Rimini, Italy! Twenty-two Duelists and 11 Dragon Duelists will battle it out over the weekend to see who will take home the title of World Champion and Dragon Duel World Champion. You’ll be able to watch a live broadcast from the event all weekend and check out other cool World Championship stuff HERE, but keep in mind that the event is happening in the Central European Time Zone! That’s NINE hours ahead of Pacific Standard Time and SIX hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time, so make sure to rest up if you plan on watching the World Championship at 9:30AM Central European Time!

If you’d much rather play in the World Championship than just watch it, you need to start off at Regional Qualifiers. Regional Qualifiers are scheduled in four blocks every year. You can find the first round of North American Regional Qualifiers for the Duelist Alliance season HERE! If you want to play in the World Championship, the first thing you need to do is qualify for your World Championship Qualifier event. These events happen every summer, but you can only play in them if you earn an invite from your Regional Qualifier, a Yu-Gi-Oh! Championship Series event, or an OTS Championship.

Then, when summer rolls around, it’s time to qualify for the World Championship! Practice hard because there’s only one World Championship Qualifier in each area of the world, and you only get one shot at it each year. Last month, the North American World Championship Qualifier attracted over 1,700 Duelists to Detroit!

Even if you don’t qualify to play in the World Championship Qualifier event, you can still hang out with fellow Duelists and play in tons of great Public Events all weekend long. There are usually other cool events there too, like Live Duels performed by the voice actors from the various Yu-Gi-Oh! animated series! It’s a huge party, and anyone can show up, even without an invitation!

If you’ve never checked out a tournament before, now’s a great time to start! And make sure to hit up a Duelist Alliance Sneak Peek on August 9 and/or 10 to get your first taste of the brand new Duelist Alliance booster set!