The fifteenth Magic World Championship took place from 11–14 December 2008 at the Memphis Cook Convention Center in Memphis, TN, USA. The tournament featured six rounds of Standard play on Thursday, two Shards of Alara Booster Drafts with three rounds of Swiss each on Friday, six rounds of Extended on Saturday, and the finals on Sunday. Also the national teams played two rounds of team constructed each on Thursday and Saturday with the Top 4 teams advancing to the single elimination finals on Sunday. The team format was 3 Person Team Constructed with one player playing Standard, one Extended, and one Legacy. The top 75 individual finishers received $245,245 in prize money.
329 players from 57 countries competed in the event. Antti Malin from Finland won the tournament, thereby claiming the first prize of $45,000. In the team final the United States defeated Australia to become the team champion.

Individual

1. Antti Malin (Finland)
2. Jamie Parke (United States)
3. Tsuyoshi Ikeda (Japan)
4. Hannes Kerem (Estonia)
5. Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa (Brazil)
6. Kenji Tsumura (Japan)
7. Frank Karsten (Netherlands)
8. Akira Asahara (Japan)

Team Competition

1. United States – Michael Jacob, Samuel Black, Paul Cheon
2. Australia – Aaron Nicastri, Brandon Lau, Justin Cheung
3. Brazil – Willy Edel, Vagner Casatti, Luiz Guilherme de Michielli
4. Japan – Yuuya Watanabe, Masashi Oiso, Akihiro Takakuwa

Pro Player of the Year

1. Shuhei Nakamura (Japan)
2. Olivier Ruel (France)
3. Luis Scott-Vargas (United States)

Rookie of the Year

1. Aaron Nicastri (Australia)

Hall of Fame inductees
- Dirk Baberowski (Germany)
- Mike Turian (United States)
- Jelger Wiegersma (Netherlands)
- Olivier Ruel (France)
- Ben Rubin (United States)