I Built a COMPUTER in Magic: The Gathering

Because Science · 2M views · 2019-10-31 · 22:54

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Overview

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.

On Hacker News

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

Recommended by 3 HN people across 3 months · HN mentions 2019–2026

Topics

Computability & complexity theory Chess, board games & puzzles

What people said

mckn1ght · 2026-06 · Recommendation
Someone made a video based on the paper, if you want to see the cards being used and a little more explanation: [VIDEO]
Read the original HN comment ↗

bentona · 2023-12 · Recommendation
Here's a demo: [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.
Read the original HN comment ↗

lukifer · 2020-04 · Recommendation
For anyone curious about the details of building a Turing machine in MtG, Because Science did a thorough breakdown and demonstration, using actual cards: [VIDEO]
Read the original HN comment ↗

Sources

Video by Because Science, played through YouTube.

HN Library · Source license

Data and selection notes

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HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

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