I Built a COMPUTER in Magic: The Gathering
Because Science3 HN recommenders · recommended in 3 months, 2019–2026
demo · general · evergreen · 2019–2026 on HN
Kyle Hill of Because Science explains and demonstrates, using real cards, how Magic: The Gathering can be used to build a Turing machine, a computer inside the card game.
HN links it as the accessible, hands-on demo behind the claim that Magic is Turing complete.
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4 comments from Hacker News
Someone made a video based on the paper, if you want to see the cards being used and a little more explanation: ▶ this video
Here's a demo: ▶ this video Didn't realize this before watching, but it's interesting that there's an incredibly complicated board state but the game state / actions are deterministic, e.g. the players don't have any choices about what to do once the machine is set up.
For anyone curious about the details of building a Turing machine in MtG, Because Science did a thorough breakdown and demonstration, using actual cards: ▶ this video
Related to your comment, here's the paper [0] and Because Science recently made a video about how such a game would look like [1]. [0] link [1] ▶ this video