This was Taylor's 29th and final World Championship, surpassing the record of 28 appearances he jointly held with John Lowe.

Michael van Gerwen, the winner of the 2014 and 2017 championships, was top of the two-year PDC Order of Merit and number one seed going into the tournament.

[2] The tournament was to be the last for Phil Taylor, who had won the PDC World Championship fourteen times previously, most recently in 2013.

[2] Richard North, in his debut year, was the highest ranked non-seed on the 2017 PDC Pro Tour Order of Merit.

As well as North, three other qualifiers through the Pro Tour made their debut, Peter Jacques, Steve Lennon and Martin Schindler.

[2] The list of qualifiers also included the 2017 Youth Champion Dimitri Van den Bergh and the 2004 runner-up Kevin Painter.

The final four qualification places were announced on 19 October,[7] with places being given to the highest ranked Eastern European, Krzysztof Ratajski, the National Darts Federation of Canada number one Jeff Smith, the highest ranked African, Devon Petersen, and the then-undetermined 2017 Development Tour winner, Luke Humphries.

[9] The sudden announcement of these places, and the granting of them to Ratajski, who had declined an invitation to the rival 2018 BDO World Darts Championship before failing to qualify through the 2017 PDC Pro Tour Order of Merit; and Jeff Smith, who had failed to qualify for the BDO World Darts Championship and not played a single PDC event in the previous year, were criticized by some, with ITV4 pundit and tour card holder Paul Nicholson saying he had written to the Professional Darts Players Association to seek clarification over the placings.

[10] The final three placings were determined by the PDPA qualifier held at Arena MK on 27 November, with Ted Evetts securing a first round place by winning the tournament, and runner-up Brendan Dolan and third-place playoff winner Jamie Lewis both qualifying to the preliminary round.

[3] 15 of the international and invitational qualifiers were making their PDC World Championship debuts, Seigo Asada,[7] Willard Bruguier,[7] Ted Evetts,[3] Cody Harris,[7] Luke Humphries,[9] Kai Fan Leung,[11] Alan Ljubić,[12] Gordon Mathers,[7] Kenny Neyens,[13] William O'Connor,[7] Diogo Portela,[14] Krzysztof Ratajski,[7] Bernie Smith,[15] Jeff Smith,[7] and Zong Xiao Chen.

[17] The top quarter of the draw saw reigning champion Michael van Gerwen dominate, knocking fellow Dutchman Christian Kist out in the first round,[18] before defeating James Wilson, without losing any of the twelve legs played,[19][20] and Gerwyn Price,[21] to set up a quarter-final with fellow Dutch former world champion Raymond van Barneveld.

Anderson's run to the quarter-final included a second round win over 63-year-old Singaporean, Paul Lim, a match noted for a leg in which Lim, who in 1990 had become the first player to throw a perfect nine-dart leg in the World Darts Championship,[30] missed a dart at double twelve to repeat the feat.

The tournament was available in the following countries on these channels: Additionally, there was coverage in Andorra, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, France, Georgia, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Moldova, Monaco, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Spain, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan on Eurosport Player, and coverage in all countries except the UK, Ireland and the Netherlands on the Professional Darts Corporation's streaming service, PDCTV-HD.