World Championship Qualifiers

National Tournaments happen in selected countries, organized by Konami, usually through their official distributors in the nation.

In Europe, there is also a continental championship featuring duelists from across the continent.

2003 National Champions
The 2003 American National Champion was Steven Standler
 * The 2003 German National Champion was Nico Sikorsky.

2004 National Champions

 * The 2004 American National Champion was Theerasak Poonsombat.
 * The 2004 Brazilian National Champion was Robinson Costa.
 * The 2004 Canadian National Champion was Joseph Leung.
 * The 2004 German National Champion was Chi-Vinh Le.
 * The 2004 Greek National Champion was Kostas Giankolo.
 * The 2004 Irish National Champion was Mark Kenny.
 * The 2004 Italian National Champion was Dario Longo.
 * The 2004 Spanish National Champion was Rodrigo Togores.
 * The 2004 United Kingdom National Champion was Ryan Pugh.

2005 National Champions

 * The 2005 American National Champion was Max Suffridge.
 * The 2005 Belgian National Champion was Guy Israel.
 * The 2005 Brazilian National Champion was André Marchetto
 * The 2005 Canadian National Champion was Dexter Dalit.
 * The 2005 Croatian National Champion was Joso Zrilić.
 * The 2005 Dutch National Champion was Guan Her Ng.
 * The 2005 Estonian National Champion was Valter Liblik.
 * The 2005 German National Champion was David Kretschmer.
 * The 2005 Greek National Champion was Miltos Miltiadis.
 * The 2005 Hungarian National Champion was Szili Atilla.
 * The 2005 Irish National Champion was James Kinsella.
 * The 2005 Israelian National Champion was Ido Marcus.
 * The 2005 Italian National Champion was Namer Merli.
 * The 2005 Polish National Champion was Paweł Marcinkowski.
 * The 2005 Swiss National Champion was Luis da Silva.
 * The 2005 United Kingdom National Champion was Adam Kruszynski.

2006 National Champions

 * The 2006 American National Champion was Austin Kulman.
 * The 2006 Austrian National Champion was Phillip Bohar.
 * The 2006 Belgian National Champion was Wim Eliano.
 * The 2006 Brazilian National Champion was Guilherme Jardim.
 * The 2006 Canadian National Champion was Calvin Tsang.
 * The 2006 Costa Rican National Champion was Sebastián Astuas.
 * The 2006 Croatian National Champion was Karlo Mrvić.
 * The 2006 Dutch National Champion was Baran Güntekin.
 * The 2006 Estonian National Champion was Henri Viiard.
 * The 2006 German National Champion was Michel Grüner.
 * The 2006 Greek National Champion was Giorgos Volakis.
 * The 2006 Irish National Champion was Darren Walsh.
 * The 2006 Israelian National Champion was Roi Dan.
 * The 2006 Italian National Champion was Dario Longo.
 * The 2006 Polish National Champion was Jarek Pajor.
 * The 2006 Spanish National Champion was Anthony Apaestegui.
 * The 2006 Swiss National Champion was Remo Lehmann.
 * The 2006 United Kingdom National Champion was Wayne Pinkney.

2007 National Champions

 * The 2007 American National Champion was Adam Corn.
 * The 2007 Australian National Champion was Egon Cardenas.
 * The 2007 Austrian National Champion was Hanspeter Rokita.
 * The 2007 Belgian National Champion was Jonas Couvreur.
 * The 2007 Brazilian National Champion was André Marchetto (2nd time).
 * The 2007 Bulgarian National Champion was Georgi Georgiev.
 * The 2007 Canadian National Champion was Dexter Dalit (2nd time).
 * The 2007 Costa Rican National Champion was Nelson Zúñiga.
 * The 2007 Croatian National Champion was Marko Božac.
 * The 2007 English National Champion was Andrew Lam.
 * The 2007 Estonian National Champion was Sten-Robert Pullerits.
 * The 2007 Finnish National Champion was Alexander Trivedi.
 * The 2007 German National Champion was Vittorio Wiktor.
 * The 2007 Greek National Champion was Nasos Bouboulis.
 * The 2007 Hong Kong National Champion was Yuen Ka Wa.
 * The 2007 Hungarian National Champion was Kis Gábor
 * The 2007 Irish National Champion was Brian Dunne.
 * The 2007 Italian National Champion was Marco Mazzuoccolo.
 * The 2007 Jamaican National Champion was Neufville Brown.
 * The 2007 Korean National Champion was Dong-Hub Lee.
 * The 2007 Lithuanian National Champion was Kazimieras Kanarskas.
 * The 2007 Malaysian National Champion was Lee Ban Siong
 * The 2007 New Zealand National Champion was Daniel Schofield.
 * The 2007 Polish National Champion was Paweł Brzostowski.
 * The 2007 Portuguese National Champion was Helio Babo.
 * The 2007 Singaporean National Champion was Lim Poo Choon.
 * The 2007 Spanish National Champion was Anthony Apaestegui.
 * The 2007 Swedish National Champion was Sebastian Öberg.
 * The 2007 Swiss National Champion was Roman Patané.
 * The 2007 Taiwanese National Champion was Huang Shin-En.

2008 National Champions

 * The 2008 American National Champion was Chris Bowling.
 * The 2008 Australian National Champion was Richard Hahn.
 * The 2008 Austrian National Champion was Tolga Erkoc.
 * The 2008 Belgian National Champion was Sébastien Gonzalez.
 * The 2008 Brazilian National Champion was Mario Vinnicius.
 * The 2008 Bulgarian National Champion was Ivan Todorov.
 * The 2008 Canadian National Champion was Lazaro Bellido.
 * The 2008 Costa Rican National Champion was Rodrigo Jiménez.
 * The 2008 Danish National Champion was Soheil Afriday.
 * The 2008 Estonian National Champion was Kaspar Kelder.
 * The 2008 Finnish National Champion was Jaakko Penttinen.
 * The 2008 German National Champion was Florian Chitic.
 * The 2008 Greek National Champion was Akis Pashos.
 * The 2008 Hungarian National Champion was Kis Gábor.
 * The 2008 Irish National Champion was Brian Donnelly.
 * The 2008 Israeli National Champion was Ido Marcus.
 * The 2008 Italian National Champion was Emanuele Giusti.
 * The 2008 Jamaican National Champion was Romeo Wint.
 * The 2008 Korean National Champion was Jung-Ho Ahn.
 * The 2008 Malaysian National Champion was Eddy Fang Chou Yong.
 * The 2008 Mexican National Champion was Alejandro Vivaldo Reyes Suarez.
 * The 2008 New Zealand National Champion was Chris Gehring.
 * The 2008 Polish National Champion was Lukasz Strukowski.
 * The 2008 Singaporean National Champion was Michael Santoso.
 * The 2008 Spanish National Champion was Borja Atienza.
 * The 2008 Swedish National Champion was Johan Bisenius.
 * The 2008 Swiss National Champion was Marco Ahr.
 * The 2008 Taiwanese National Champion was Wei-Hao She.
 * The 2008 United Kingdom National Champion was Han-Wei Tang.

2009 National Champions

 * The 2009 American National Champion was Kris Ferber.
 * The 2009 Australian National Champion was Alexander Antonies.
 * The 2009 Austrian National Champion was Claudio Kirchmair.
 * The 2009 Belgian National Champion was Jérôme Legrand.
 * The 2009 Brazilian National Champion was Patric Gallo.
 * The 2009 Bulgarian National Champion was Atanas Dimitrov.
 * The 2009 Canadian National Champion was Charles Easton.
 * The 2009 Chilean National Champion was Gonzalo Ercole.
 * The 2009 Costa Rican National Champion was Bismark Perez.
 * The 2009 Croatian National Champion was Luka Šterbić.
 * The 2009 Czech National Champion was Michal Mlynáy.
 * The 2009 Danish National Champion was Casper Frederiksen.
 * The 2009 Dutch National Champion was Sven Schuurhuis.
 * The 2009 Ecuadorian National Champion was Jose Ubilla.
 * The 2009 Estonian National Champion was Mihkel Kukk.
 * The 2009 Finnish National Champion was Alexander Trivedi.
 * The 2009 French National Champion was Yohan Dudognon.
 * The 2009 German National Champion was Roland Gress.
 * The 2009 Greek National Champion was Nick Boulbasakos.
 * The 2009 Hungarian National Champion was Tamas Nemeth.
 * The 2009 Irish National Champion was Robert Stefanuik.
 * The 2009 Israelian National Champion was Ido Marcus.
 * The 2009 Italian National Champion was Andrea D'Angelo.
 * The 2009 Latvian National Champion was Igors Kogans.
 * The 2009 Lithuanian National Champion was Kazimieras Kanarskas.
 * The 2009 Maltese National Champion was Clint Caruana.
 * The 2009 Mexican National Champion was Leija Hernandez José Juan.
 * The 2009 New Zealand National Champion was Calum Rickard.
 * The 2009 Panama National Champion was Galileo de Obaldia.
 * The 2009 Peruvian National Champion was Daniel Velasquez.
 * The 2009 Polish National Champion was Gabriel Listowski.
 * The 2009 Portuguese National Champion was André Lopes.
 * The 2009 Romanian National Champion was Radu Dima.
 * The 2009 Slovenian National Champion was Matej Lavrinšek.
 * The 2009 South African National Champion was Abdul Gaffoor.
 * The 2009 Spanish National Champion was Andres Almozara.
 * The 2009 Swedish National Champion was Axel Vilhelmsson.
 * The 2009 Swiss National Champion was Marco Ahr.
 * The 2009 United Kingdom National Champion was Nathan Pang.
 * The 2009 Ecuador National Champion was Gabriel Hernandez.

In the Anime/Manga
In the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga and anime, several national champions have been seen, although limited to the United States and Japan.

American National Champions in the Anime/Manga
"Bandit" Keith Howard was a former American national champion until he lost the title to Maximillion Pegasus. (In the English dub, Keith was classified the Intercontinental Champion as the setting for the series was made more vague.)

Later in the series, Leon von Schroder (Leonhart von Schroider in the Japanese) became the European National Champion, participating in Seto Kaiba's KC Grand Prix Championship.

Japanese National Champions in the Anime/Manga
Seto Kaiba was formerly the Japanese national champion prior to pulling out of the latest national championship, leaving Weevil Underwood to claim the title.