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I Built a COMPUTER in Magic: The Gathering

Because Science
Demos
YouTube
3 HN users recommended this demo3 months2019–2026 score 3
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

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

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.

“Because Science did a thorough breakdown and demonstration, using actual cards” (HN, 2020)

3 recommendations · 1 citations · Demos

4 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@lukifer Apr 2020 Recommends
on HN thread Accidentally Turing-Complete
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]
Thorough breakdown and demo of a Turing machine in MtG.
@bentona Dec 2023 Recommends
on HN thread Magic: The Gathering Is Turing Complete (2019)
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.
Demo showing deterministic machine game state.

Citations, criticism and jokes

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

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