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I Built a COMPUTER in Magic: The Gathering

Because Science · demo · Watch on YouTube

Computability & complexity theoryChess, board games & puzzles

What it is

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.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN links it as the accessible, hands-on demo behind the claim that Magic is Turing complete.

  • 3 people recommended it
  • 3 different months
  • 0 strong recommendations
  • first 2019, last 2026

What HN commenters said

  1. “Because Science did a thorough breakdown and demonstration, using actual cards”

    Thorough breakdown and demo of a Turing machine in MtG.

    lukifer, 2020-04 · Recommendation · in “Accidentally Turing-Complete”

  2. “Here's a demo”

    Demo showing deterministic machine game state.

    bentona, 2023-12 · Recommendation · in “Magic: The Gathering Is Turing Complete (2019)”

  3. “if you want to see the cards being used and a little more explanation”

    Shows the cards used with extra explanation.

    mckn1ght, 2026-06 · Recommendation · in “MTG Bench: Testing how well LLMs can play magic”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: turing machine, magic the gathering, computation, card games, emergent complexity

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