Unlike the previous DRAGON BALL FighterZ World Tour, 2026 won’t feature a massive final tournament to culminate a year of action. Instead, Bandai Namco and Arc System Works are hosting DBFZ Masters Showdown, a new invitational event featuring eight of the best players in the world across the game’s competitive history.
A mix of recent top finishers, previous DRAGON BALL FighterZ champions, and a single challenger from an open qualifier spot will clash on April 19 at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, each hoping to claim what could be among the final major titles for the game.
DRAGON BALL FighterZ Masters Showdown: Player list
In a somewhat hybrid fashion to how Bandai Namco and its partners would host the DRAGON BALL FighterZ World Tour Finals, many invites for the DRAGON BALL FighterZ Masters Showdown were given to winners from major events. Except this time, that honor was split between modern champions and legends from the past.
As Bandai put it, the Masters Showdown is “a tournament to bring all the legendary fighters together!”
Here is the list of competitors heading into the event:
- Jo'siah "Hikari" Miller — DRAGON BALL FighterZ World Tour Finals 2024 and 2025 Champion
- Marwan "Wawa" Berthe — DRAGON BALL FighterZ World Tour Finals 2022 Champion
- Goichi "GO1" Kishida — DRAGON BALL FighterZ World Tour Finals 2020 Champion
- Mael "WADE" Jomie — Ultimate Fighting Game Arena 2025 Champion
- Yonis "Yasha" Ahamada — Ultimate Fighting Game Arena 2024 Champion
- Dominique "SonicFox" McLean — Evo 2018 Champion
- Daniel "Gropis" Gras Llopis — Evo France 2025 Runner-up
- TBD — Last Chance Qualifier
The final slot will be decided by a Last Chance Qualifier on April 18. The event itself will be streamed on the DRAGON BALL Games Battle Hour YouTube channel, with the main event starting at 9AM PDT on April 19 and the finals airing at 2:30PM.
What to expect at the DRAGON BALL FighterZ Masters Showdown
Even the listed achievements of each invited player aren’t enough to convey how legendary this invitational could be for the DRAGON BALL FighterZ community. With so many of the game’s top talent in the mix, including an additional player from the Last Chance Qualifier, there are a lot of ways things could shake out this weekend.
Hikari has won the last two DRAGON BALL FighterZ World Tour Finals, is the reigning Evo France champion, and won Evo 2023. He is arguably the most accomplished player in the history of DBFZ at the highest level, and the Masters Showdown gives him a chance to prove it against some of the other greats, while also technically defending his World Championship title for a third straight year in the absence of a proper circuit.
This is also a chance for WADE to finally break through his ceiling. He previously finished second at the DBFZ World Tour Finals in both 2023 and 2024, and is now looking to put his name at the top of the game following his win at Ultimate Fighting Arena 2025 and a third-place finish at Evo France.
Likewise, Yasha will want to finally claim one of these major Bandai-backed DBFZ events for himself after more than three years of consistent top finishes, including 11 title wins since 2022. He also finished third at last year's DBFZ World Finals, falling to INZEM, who could also compete if he qualifies for the main event through the LCQ.
The remaining three spots all went to legendary players of the game’s past that largely moved on to other titles after 2022, but they are back to test themselves one more time.
SonicFox took DBFZ by storm in its first several years, placing in the top two at almost every event they attended in 2018, with wins at Evo, COMBO BREAKER, VS Fighting, and East Coast Throwdown in the same year. And, of course, you can’t mention SonicFox in DBFZ without bringing up GO1.
The rivalry that defined the game. @SonicFox vs @GO13151 .
— Evo (@Evo) April 15, 2026
Fighting Further coming tomorrow to EvoFGC. pic.twitter.com/ABtyU0sCoI
GO1 bested his rival in a rematch at Evo 2019, adding to arguably the single best competitive year for a player in the game’s history, which included 10 first place finishes and a DBFZ World Tour championship title.
The final invited player is Wawa, who likewise claimed the title of best DBFZ player across a single year when he won CEO, Evo, and the DBFZ World Championship in 2022. Just like SonicFox and GO1, the Masters Showdown will be among Wawa’s first times playing the game seriously since stepping away in 2023.
Outside of the direct invites, Gropis will attend after finishing second behind Hikari at Evo France 2025. He has only attended a handful of offline events, but broke out at Evo 2023, where he finished third, before storming back two years later at Evo France and taking sets off of several top players including WADE and Hikari.
Overall, the Masters Showdown represents an entire era of competitive play for DRAGON BALL FighterZ, and will likely close a chapter on these World Tour-style events as the game just recently turned eight years old. Though that doesn’t mean the competition is headed to Other World just yet…
DRAGON BALL Games Battle Hour 2026: The future of DRAGON BALL FighterZ
The Masters Showdown is actually part of a larger celebration of DRAGON BALL media called the DRAGON BALL Games Battle Hour. This two-day event will feature news about upcoming projects and items like new content for games, manga, anime, movies, and even toys.
We will likely see more announcements for games like the upcoming AGE 1000 or even DRAGON BALL: Sparking! Zero, but there is one major thing DBFZ fans should keep an eye out for.
As announced at Evo France 2025 to the excitement of the most hardcore DBFZ community in the world, Arc System Works and Bandai Namco confirmed Goku’s Super Saiyan 4 form from DRAGON BALL Daima will be added to the game as DLC in Spring 2026. No date was given at the time, but we could see that change during the Battle Hour, along with potential details about a new patch or other changes coming to the game soon.
