I Built a COMPUTER in Magic: The Gathering

Magic: The Gathering is famously complicated, but did you know it is complicated enough to make a computer inside of? Witness a world first in this week’s episode!

[@becausescience]

Thanks for watching, Super Nerds! I know this one is a bit dense, but being the MTG nerd that I am, I wanted to try an experiment. And *below is the full set-up of the deck* and a link to the paper if you're interested (it's very complicated!): arxiv.org/abs/1904.09828 and if you like Magic and/or EDH, please subscribe to The Command Zone, the only magic podcast I listen to: kzbin.info/door/LsiaNUb42gRAP7ewbJ0ecQ -- kH 1) Go infinite. Play Staff of Domination, draw whole deck. 2) Play Fathom Feeder, Reito Lantern, Lotus petal, demonstrate loop where cast-sac-lantern-fathom feeder to exile rest of Josh’s library. 3) Play Karn, exile card from Josh’s hand. Demonstrate loop with Capsize to exile all cards from Josh’s hand and all permanents he controls. 4) Cast Infest, in response Cleansing Beam (fathom feeder), Coalition Victory, Soul Snuffers, Gix 5) Sac Soul Snuffers to Gix 6) Cast Blazing Archon, Vigor, XN, RR, Dread of Night, Shared Triumph (naming Luhrgoyf), Privileged Position, Mesmeric Orb, Fungus Sliver, Wild Evocation, Prismatic Omen, Choke, Memnarch, Olivia Voldaren, Djinn 7) Cast Cloak of Invisibility on one XN. 8) COPY TIME. With Stolen Identity, copy 79 times with Djinn. Vigor, Archon, XN (7), RR (33), Dread of Night, Shared Triumph. Use Memnarch to make Dread of Night, Shared Triumph (naming rat), Cloak of Invisibility artifacts. a. Give cloaks to 36 XN and RR. 9) Using Riptide Replicator and Capsize, create 36 creature tokens of varying power and toughness, using 18 different creature types we are going to use as symbols in our program. 10) Using Prismatic Lace, Glamerdye, Artificial Evolution and the Djinn, change text, creature type, and color of pretty much all my permanents. a. All XN + RR going to be red, black, green, and white, and are going to make different creature tokens of a different color, according to our program. b. All tape tokens to the left of the 2/2 orc are going to be green, all to the left will be white. c. Our Fungus is going to be white and give counter to “incarnations” instead of slivers d. Dread of night is going to look for “black” creatures instead of white. e. Olivia Voldaren to make Assembly Workers instead of Vampires 11) Cast Donate 41 times. Give Josh all the hacked RR and XN, the Wild Evocation, a copy of the Vigor and the Archon. 12) Cast Illusory Gains on your White 3/3 Faerie. 13) Hacked Olivia Voldaren to hack all creatures in play as type Assembly Worker 14) Cast Recycle 15) Reito Lantern all graveyard specific order, Staff of Domination draw Donate, Donate + Djinn to Recycle and Privileged Position, draw 2 a.ON THE STACK, cast Reality Ripple on 18 of the XN and RR according to our program, gives the computer 2 different phases as your turn comes around 16) Reito Infest, Cleansing Beam, Coalition Victory, Soul Snuffers to library, draw rest of library + Infest 17) Karn / Capsize exile my hand plus all set-up permanents 18) Cast Karn, exile card from my hand, in response, Capsize Karn 19) Cast Wheel of Sun and Moon, cast Steely Resolve (naming Assembly Worker) 20) PASS

[@ArchangelExile]

I understood _nothing_

[@k_tess]

I'm computer engineer and have been playing since Theros. I understood the machine when it was working. I didn't understand getting there. So I'm a better programmer than I am a player. Which I guess is a good thing.

[@Xomsabre]

"Your ancestors called it Magic; you call it Science. Where I come from, they are one in the same."

[@Fufu0117]

" A bored wizard once made a vizzerdrix out of a bunny and a piranha. He never made that mistake again " - Because Science 2019

[@evilgeek87]

Finally a use for phasing!

[@RyanMcLeodsAwesome]

One day you bring a deck to FNM. "How does your deck win?" "Oh, it doesn't. It just mines Bitcoin."

[@robertlozyniak3661]

Would mining Bitcoin count as an alternate win condition?

[@doylerudolph7965]

@@robertlozyniak3661 depends on the prize money. If you can mine more than the prize in the time you're given, I'd say you've won.

[@Nightwishmaster]

@@robertlozyniak3661 Not unless it also mines prize packs as well.

[@Savapine]

LOL

[@nathancarver7179]

@@robertlozyniak3661 I'd say so. Why even bother trying to win money if your magic cards can mine bitcoin?

[@miaouew]

Incidentally this deck is also more expensive than most modern computers.

[@vin.himself]

@erium ok boomer

[@miaouew]

@@vin.himself yeah I'm a 30 year old boomer

[@jauchengrube6951]

Less that 400€, if you ignore shipping and buy the cheapest versions available online. I did the math.

[@calebfuller4713]

I was thinking that - bet this deck actually costs more than a PC! Ironic, no?

[@CasperTheRestless]

yeah but it doesn't need electricity

[@randomaccessfemale]

Opponent in a tournament: What kind of a deck do you have? Kyle: It's a Turing machine deck. It calculates 2+2 and then wins.

[@OGSilentMan]

2+2 is the best stratmin mtg

[@toolittletoolate]

After 10 minutes of Kyle playing Solitaire the judges where called and he was DQ'd from the tourney for Slow Play (ignoring the fact the deck needs magic christmas land to even function)

[@tasmanmillen]

I love how 5 cards in he's already ignoring the option to literally deal infinite unblockable damage to his opponents lol

[@toasterstrooder8628]

It’s like he said at the end… it’s not about the win: it’s about the science!

[@richardpike8748]

@@toasterstrooder8628 "it's not about money, it's about sending a message"

[@VidelxSpopovich]

That reminds me of the artifact deck I made where I just get infinite mana, and my turn could on as long as I want and make as many tokens as I want.

[@omicronixzerus2929]

it's not always about the damage spider man

[@gabzsy4924]

This deck is all about the psychological damage.

[@jackiequestionable]

When a blue player forgets to put a win condition in their deck.

[@matheusrudzevicius6448]

I mean when the code finishes, a few hundred turns in, he would win with coalition victory

[@ThePeoplesWill]

@@matheusrudzevicius6448 I think it is a bit more than a few hundred. It depends on the number of cards in his deck, times the # of times in a rotation a blue token is on his board. Pretty cool stuff.

[@matheusrudzevicius6448]

@@ThePeoplesWill oh yeah for sure, a few hundreads was the low end, it could be a lot more than that, turing machines tend to go trought a lot of states, especialy if the command is complex

[@chanic4621]

All counter spells and bounce spells. 0 win conditions besides making the opponent scoop. Maybe 4x oko to make a point

[@Nanook128]

@@chanic4621 Oko is a win con though.

[@Sam_on_YouTube]

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from Magic the Gathering" -Arthur C. Clark

[@janikarkkainen3904]

Ahahaha oh god this made my day. Actually lolled.

[@NotHPotter]

Hi, it is as cool seeing a super nerd comment before it blows up.

[@InnocuousRemark]

Super nerd verified

[@Sam_on_YouTube]

I recently took my 25 year old (mostly Revised Edition) magic deck to play for the first time since then at a tournament. Every game was the weirdest I had ever seen. I almost won twice when my opponent had really bad luck.

[@NotHPotter]

@@Sam_on_KZbin I grew up playing a ton of Magic, but ever since they added Planeswalkers, it's all become foreign to me.

[@leoro_367]

Josh: "I play a forest" Kyle's Turing computer deck: *"Hold my beer"*

[@RGC_animation]

XD

[@StephenDelRosario777]

*I simulate the birth, life and heat death of the universe*

[@mr.voidroy6869]

Kyle's deck: I scoop 99% of the time.

[@TheLoraxWithMjolnir]

lol

[@louis058]

I like how answering Josh's question of "do you win" is actually impossible to answer without just going through the game until you do win (or someone gives up and concedes/"interrupts" the game), because of the halting problem.

[@absobel]

THIS IS HILARIOUS

[@wm9482]

Gods curse ye halting problem!

[@Furavara]

Well, there is a logical way to answer, which kinda leads into the decision problem, but I digress: If none of the token makers are setup to make a blue token, he does not win. The game probably halts at some point due to the way forced cycles work in the rules, if the tape gets caught in an infinite loop

[@HoxTop]

Not quite right: the halting problem says that there can be no algorithm that can determine whether a program halts for all programs, it does not mean that you cannot tell whether some specific program will halt (for example, you know a program that just prints "hello world!" will halt even without running it). In this case, the program is known (and is probably pretty simple), so we could probably deduce whether it halts or not without playing.

[@magica3526]

@@HoxTop yeah exactly.

[@thomasjenkins5727]

"I play a forest." "Coo, I play my deck."

[@TheVinchenzo130]

Half of all legacy games lol

[@kostekrodenburg1977]

I mean, I was waiting for the Swamp, Thoughtseize play, would have been extra fun

[@MrMikado282]

Legacy

[@camaloncrack9737]

I thought is was going to be a swamp into Thoughtseize 🤣

[@derekwalter4238]

I have a mono green edh deck that goes infinite and plays the whole deck. Usually takes a few turns to build up to it tho

[@Aeihd]

"But we need someone to play with" -1st move makes them unable to do anything.

[@Dustquake]

The villiany reveals itself. You must play with Kyle to sit in an endless loop of pass.

[@zS39SBT4fe5Zp8Q]

Yup it's magic

[@ToabyToastbrot]

@@Dustquake If setup right it isn't endless, the "Coalition Victory" should resolve once you got your solution.

[@Arenuphis]

a near endless loop then

[@BYOBando]

@@Arenuphis Well.... Near endless until opponent scoops. Which is the only action Jimmy and Josh could have still legally taken on any of their turns. Which I love because it's the metaphoric to now semi-literal throwing a wrench in the gears of the machine. Also shades of that famous computer/AI situation that computed the only solution to "win" was to not keep playing.

[@MrKassNova]

" What magic card deck do you use bro?" "I dont use my magic card deck, it uses me."

[@kertkoljada1891]

Sounds like an anime

[@ChaojianZhang]

👍

[@wiatcheslavsidortsov5235]

I like the flavor text on Coalition Victory literally saying "You can build a perfect machine out of imperfect parts". I wonder if Urza meant Turing machine at that moment ...

[@52flyingbicycles]

Urza is so powerful he can destroy the fourth wall and the space time continuum

[@pleasestopdisassemblingmylimbs]

Teacher: Ight no calculators during the test The nerd in the back: *pulls out magic deck*

[@TtNtnT]

Still finishes before everyone else...

[@Kafj302]

I want to see someone becone proficient with this deck that they could do that.

[@mtgskunkworx1671]

@@Kafj302 it'll loop, but they don't really understand how to build a language to program it... Yet.

[@angeldude101]

I once asked a prof if an iClicker (a remote for answering questions during lectures) was allowed for the test. They said if I could use one to cheat then I'd probably deserve the mark anyways.

[@NStripleseven]

1 week later: Okay, so that's the first part of q1...

[@joelhaggis5054]

After gaining infinite mana, drawing his entire deck, and exiling everything his opponent owns all on turn 1, Kyle proceeded to assemble a Turing Machine.

[@Mrphilipjcook]

Given he was going to do that, he didn't really need an opponent. Given the game ended when he exiled his opponents hand and library. I get it's a framing device, for his Turing device, but I found it a tad irritating 😅

[@CassiePOE]

Not necessarily true, maybe he needed to go second to draw a card on his turn? If his opponent was playing legacy meta, his opponent could win turn 1 instead with some other decks, in theory XD

[@CruentusMessor]

@@Mrphilipjcook He might have needed creatures to be on the board but not controlled by him

[@beangorl7005]

4rt_6uy I think there were set up creatures in there somewhere that prevented the immediate loss from not having a library but I'm not sure which

[@Cangaroombi]

@@beangorl7005 You don't lose from having an empty library. You lose only if you draw from an empty library, but since Recycle made Jimmy and Josh skip their draw step they couldn't lose from that. The game was in stalemate, no one could do any move other than passing.

[@crypto727]

Just noticed the majority of the card that Kyle used were blue. Blue is so strong it can literally make a computer.

[@kaja3932]

The biggest flavor win of all time

[@timmyda1st191]

Blue is literally all about gaining knowledge, all of it. Infinitely

[@ScreamingPhoenix96]

Months from now: "Todd Howard to develop Skyrim for MtG Turing deck"

[@niteliniN]

it runs doom (93)

[@kindredtoast3439]

Yes. So Bethesda can release it again.

[@bjstrife]

They don't even need that. We already have DnD and Harry Potter sets, how long do you think it will take before we get an MtG Elder Scrolls crossover?

[@elirave4027]

Well first things first, can it run doom?

[@ComradeTiki]

> "I made a Computer in MTG!" "Is it bl-" > "..it's blue."

[@rendermangl]

Hahahaha 🤣

[@Sunomis]

It's deep blue.

[@yohumanfrisk]

Honestly tho! But the funny thing is... It appears that the deck was majorly Black!

[@taintedmyth0s636]

Of course it would be blue. I wasn't even surprised lol

[@07011111111]

@@yohumanfrisk it's all colors

[@oliverg.1537]

I love how having infinite mana and drawing your entire deck on turn one is the easy part 🤣

[@reddeatharena9218]

Of course

[@BierBart12]

TASTE THE RAINBOW

[@Andarius]

"In response, I cast Force of Will.".... "Fuck"

[@yugioldchannel]

Magic: Let’s you draw your entire deck Yugioh: Doesn’t let you use a card that draws 2 cards

[@weberman173]

@@yugioldchannel well thats because YGO and Magic have different Power Checks in place, yugioh dosnt have a "cost" system Inherent to all cards(some cards are restricted to once per turn, other are monsters thus must be summoned which is limited if normal summoned but its not a inherent thing) in Magic the advantage by having more cards in hand is neglitable, its still present BUT pure Card Advantage isnt as broken as in Yugioh, If you have a card in yugioh chandes are pretty good you can play it this turn, even better if its a Spell Card, in Magic do to the inherent check in place via Mana costs this is not the case. In yugioh if you Play Pot of Greed, you are doing 2-3 Things depending on Deck size, first you increase your starting hand by +1(if you draw it at start) ,if you play a 40 Card deck, no you dont you are playing a 39 Card Deck, And lastly You cycle Cards from the top of your deck faster then normaly possible. In Magic that isnt a big deal, the mana System keeps it in check, IN yugioh, this isnt the case, any card you gain, or even more so every card your deck is smaller will increase consisctency by leaps and bounds, as there are almost no situtions where a card is "dead" in your hand if your deck is build well, while in Magic that can happen do to the mana system,

[@jeluenhayo2410]

Playing solitaire with himself for 2 hours while preventing you to do anything and concede in the end - sounds like a classic UW-control experience :)

[@VullVull]

Sounds like standard Yu-Gi-Oh

[@CandeIero]

The most amazing part about this in my opinion is that the program runs by itself once it is assembled, i.e. every action is forced. You could probably build a way simpler computer by using charge counters etc on lands and artifacts and tap / untap effects, but then the player would have to execute the algorithm by actively choosing the correct actions, which is then not sufficient for saying "mtg is turing complete". Also, using token creatures for the band and creature types for the symbols is hilarious and really smart at the same time.

[@williambarnes5023]

Human Elf Lizard Lizard Octopus Wizard Octopus Rat Lizard Druid

[@RevanReborn3950BBY]

@@williambarnes5023ah yes

[@riverlefae2047]

Next Episode: Running Doom in a Magic: the Gathering Turing Machine.

[@rakkazoid]

There's been some real funny comments but this one topped it for me. Gg

[@FirstLast-gm9nu]

clearly the next thing to do is make nested turing machines. Running minecraft in pokemon yellow in microsoft powerpoint in magic the gathering.

[@LordDragon1965]

But can it run Crysis

[@pie6029]

@Ishmam Masud - Cuz I Can this is like watching your own livestream while the stream is running

[@humanatee6639]

Making a computer in minecraft on magic: the gathering

[@switchemcee3775]

Them: “What does this deck do?” Me: “Your taxes.”

[@salfazlucario2660]

Teacher: no calculators Kyle: what about magic cards?

[@underrated1524]

Well, if you can run trillions of steps to compute anything of any importance before the class period ends, then you've earned your A.

[@Hung_Nguyen_90]

Try Yugioh card. You could make a custom card and put a whole book in the card's effect and teacher wouldn't even notice.

[@The-EJ-Factor]

at that point just use paper.

[@trixipixity]

I love the fact that the flavor text of “coalition victory” (their win con/computer ender) is “you can build a perfect machine out of imperfect parts” which is pretty much what was done

[@nemesis3295]

Ha ha good catch! I bet that is one of the reasons they put that card in. Nice little Easter egg.

[@fernandoveiga1848]

Son: hey daddy what is 2+2? Dad: ok son *pulls out a deck of cards* I'll tell you in 18 hours

[@johnfranklin87]

Lmfao . . 18 hrs later "Daddy whats 2x2"

[@Fiftycentis]

one day later "here son, the result is 5... oh, i mistriggered something... let's do it again!"

[@tylercsm4690]

Charles Crawford do you even understand the point of common core , or do you just talk shit because your an idiot

[@xenotronia6681]

@@tylercsm4690 Common core has seventh graders adding and subtracting negative numbers.

[@WindchaserX]

@@johnfranklin87 ok i'll explain in 18 hrs x 18 hrs.

[@thetempest9330]

Kyle: Grab SIXTY cards and meet me at the table Josh and Jimmy: We don't do that here

[@zoeyzeebra]

You can treat the colors as a base 6 number system with colorless being 0. As the colors in MTG have a specific order they show up in you get: C: 0 W: 1 U: 2 B: 3 R: 4 G: 5 This means that you can encode data in Base 6 instead of base 2 like an electronic computer as each bit has 6 different states. This would significantly lower the length of tape for math operations when compared to Base 2. So in order to add 2+2 your valid output bit would be R. If you want to get really granular with numbers you could use the first letter of each token name as well this would let you use base 26 or base 6 (assuming you can make tokens that start with each letter of the alphabet.)

[@FredDino]

Actually, you can do it with each creature type that is nonessential to the functioning of the machine. Seeing as there are 281 creature types, and assuming Assembly-Worker is the only type that prevents the head reading, you could do calculations in base-280.

[@noone-ss8lu]

@@FredDino you two are about to have a real nerd off to see who is the king math dork

[@sonamadinolf6096]

This was actually not the first stage of the study even! This was an optimization of it. The earlier stage required FOUR players, and it required players to not decline to use abilities that said "may". That was already impressive. The fact that they've optimized it to TWO players, and tournament legal, and no player choice is amazing.

[@ChaojianZhang]

This comment is underrated.

[@mr.voidroy6869]

I want to make this deck as a joke and have a friend play me in friendly with the condition I stack my hand just so he can witness this.

[@ChaoticNeutralMatt]

@@mr.voidroy6869 yes

[@TheDavi2001]

1

[@duellinksantimeta7636]

Maybe something like this can work in Yugioh xD

[@crazymanjj1]

"Legacy legal deck." Force of Will: "I'm about to crash this man's whole computer!"

[@pohatunuva3771]

Underrated game, wish it was popular in my area. Played a few rounds with my buddies, pretty darn fun.

[@ridleypuff2706]

@@pohatunuva3771 i think he meant the card force of will, not the game

[@pohatunuva3771]

@@ridleypuff2706 This is a certified bruh moment. I think I still prefer my anime card game over this one card. Like how you can't get landlocked in FoW.

[@Bluejake3]

Turn 1 Thoughtseize: "I'm sorry, your computer can't boot"

[@cavejohnson4054]

Force of will - literally blue screen of death

[@loganboehnlein2738]

I think the scariest part is the "Legacy Legal" aspect. Imagine a pro player getting the perfect hand and assembling Robo Cop

[@Patrick-gm3fb]

How long do you think it will be before someone simulates Magic: The Gathering inside of Magic: The Gathering?

[@lavandieredenoz]

Probably hundred of years

[@kazikmajster5650]

Mtg needs randomness. W8 DIGITS OF π CAN BE USED FOR THAT!

[@ihavekalashnikovyoudomath9275]

We're limited by the technology of our time. We only have a memory of 60 cards, and need at least 200 kiloCards

[@RevanReborn3950BBY]

@@ihavekalashnikovyoudomath9275lol

[@CErra310]

There's a card that does that

[@patr7240]

Kyle: let me explain how this game is a computer Magic player: judge!

[@Sihgilanu]

this shit right here A: "i gain two mana from this card, to cast these two cards" B: ... A: "i sack those two cards to cast this card, which i gain three mana from" B: ... A: "i cast this enchant to reduce the tap cost from the three-mana-gain card to two mana, giving me infinite mana" B: ..."oh god... no..." A: "i then cast this card, which allows me to transform that mana into every color, giving me an infinite amount of every color mana" B: "please... i just want to play ONE game!" A: "i then exile your deck and hand, and draw my entire deck" B: "deaR GOD WHY?!" A: "i then win the game by dealing an infinite amount of damage to you"

[@kindlin]

@@Sihgilanu Omg, this was great.

[@PT8Sceptile]

What if the person making the computer sets it up to check for counterexamples to eg. Goldbach's conjecture up until some incomprehensibly large number, and then depending on the result either halt or enter an infinite loop? Therefore making the outcome of the game into an unsolved mathematical problem? Might be a slightly more interesting day than average for the judge in question.

[@wildworld6641]

@@Sihgilanu so....vintage? Theres your problem right there!

[@urbypilot2136]

@@Sihgilanu I remember an urban legend about a blue deck involving a Black Lotus, a card that had a time-loop effect allowing you to regain said Black Lotus, and a card that made the target draw a number of cards by the amount of mana expended. The end result was you targeted the opponent forcing the, to draw their entire deck in their hand, which of course would result in it being discarded because you can only have 7 cards in your hand. Next turn, opponent can't draw, and then lose. It was said that this combo was banned and tourney rules were changed to prevent this kind of exploit. Edit: I admit to making this comment before fully watching this video. Now I'm not sure if the aforementioned "urban legend deck" is what Kyle played, as I can't recall of the top of my head what the other components are.

[@a-blivvy-yus]

*Start Game* *30 hours later* "...I win." "...also my deck counted to 4."

[@Lawrence330]

@Orlando Rotundo That's a different game...

[@Aedi]

"my deck calculated that you lose"

[@andrewsparkes8829]

Sounds like an EDH game I was in the other week...

[@starner00]

Orlando Rotundo It would eventually win with Coalition Victory, because he’ll eventually get every color creature token. It’ll probably take another 10 cycles to get there though.

[@Sandro1155]

The amount of work that must have gone into this Research Paper if absolutely astonishing. I don't even know how to begin with such a huge task, insane

[@hotelmario510]

I love how Kyle is a goofball but he gets REALLY serious while playing

[@mlxp]

This is almost literally the ProZD skits about Magic the Gathering.

[@HUNKragor]

Cheese cow

[@edwardfeldman3533]

Black Brie

[@Wolfeur]

@@HUNKragor I like Cool Cow…because it's cool

[@cractor6307]

IM MOOING INFINITE

[@ExHyperion]

This is just the cheese tasting phase

[@eamonbell6378]

This is quite possibly the absolute nerdiest thing that has ever happened ever

[@Luckingsworth]

@Johnston Steiner That I feel is the ultimate outcome of this Expiriment. Doing all this in a Sharazad subgame to enact an outcome in a real game.

[@virtualnightgaming]

Imagine if the one game he had the combo, Josh said "Turn 1, thought seize"

[@clutcherhierts]

19:56 "So, do you win or what?" "Like in this game?" "Yeah...like does it just keep going or..." "I don't know (I scoop)" That's a nice reference to the Halting Problem you have there...

[@xJarlaxle]

Turn one: forest, pass Me: what kind of legacy game is this? Turn one: infinite coloured mana of every colour Me: Ah yes, this is more like it

[@cheeseymann]

Get a howling mine, library of leng, the urzas and racks and you've started a badass black deck

[@Brawler_1337]

I know. Josh could have at least gone Forest into Heritage Druid to at least make it look like he’s playing Elves.

[@fgregerfeaxcwfeffece]

Don't mock my forest swamp as lazy design just because it is just strictly better then either! Oh, sorry you where talking about the power 9. Good old days when they didn't know jack about balance. WotC in 1993: "draw 3 cards? 1 mana seems fine. extra turn? Uh, that sound heavy, make it 2. gaining 3 mana? i think 0 is balanced." The meta: "Wat? Do you sometimes stop and listen to yourself?! Or do you just pull shit out your ass as you go?" For people who don't know magic: And by the rules of the format he plays those cards aren't even legal. Lotus Petal(what he used) is strictly a powered down version of the Black Lotus the mentioned 3 mana for 0.

[@dragonmaster613]

How is this legal?

[@parkerpope1163]

@@dragonmaster613 I will make it legal

[@eagletsnupper7876]

Imagine Kyle at a high stakes tournament explaining his magic Turing machine instead of actually playing the game

[@Pyoromo]

Lost because of slow play from a judge call.

[@alamdaali8776]

Magic tournaments are now over with this.. they have to be, right?

[@alamdaali8776]

@@Pyoromo is that a real thing? whoa so this cannot be applied?

[@siks667]

Imagine Kyle entering world's with Turing deck and somehow despite professional and anonymous shuffling, he gets first place because before he can even take any of the win conditions the opponents scoop when their hand and field are exiled

[@TechandDoc]

@@Pyoromo Technically since he passes his turn almost immediately that would not apply.

[@rubi4714]

Kyle... This. Was. AWESOME! Just a couple of things that might make it a bit clearer for someone watching without a background in CS: 1. I'm assuming the phasing thing is to simulate the alternation of READ and EXECUTE phases of the Turing machine. When you do the explanation of the Turing machine in the beginning, you kind of breeze over that part. 2. All of the setup is simply to make your opponent into the tape and clock (phasing) parts of the machine, and to then reduce the board state to the necessary parts to make the machine work. I'm not sure you point that out well enough for people to realize what's going on when you're doing all that initial stuff (Karn, etc). 3. Big props to Josh and Jimmy, who I thought did a good job pointing out that their turn simply consisted of those state updates, and nothing else. Seriously though, instant sub! I can't wait for more!

[@Existentialism8820]

I feel like the "I can fit through the Doggy Door." was off script and I love it

[@thehqnd11]

"I can take this deck to a tournament!" "Please don't" me: Please do!

[@_e621]

I would want to see someone do that

[@Kafj302]

We all want to see this. Omg imagine if multiple people brought the same deck.

[@PaintsAreOp]

He needs to have the exact cards in his hand for this to work and you have to shuffle your deck in a tournament.

[@carlbutcher2268]

Judge: "Disqualified."

[@Aisuprism]

I would bring it try to cheat to get the hand do the whole thing then scoop.

[@aerbon]

me to my computer deck: "run win.exe" my opponent: "it runs windows?" me: "no, it calculates how to win the game"

[@xboxcrusher]

Insta wins feel so cheap when you lose, but so satisfying when you're the one to pull it off.

[@Krescentwolf]

Insta wins and Infinite loops are indeed so satifying to pull off XD

[@siks667]

See what's fun is when they have an infinite loop to ping everyone down one by one, and as they aim at you or at a point where everyone else is gone, you interrupt and crash their loop to take the win.

[@tuckertooley174]

It does run doom though

[@TriggeredLimey]

Having never played this game, I honestly have no clue what I just watched. However, and maybe even strangely, I still really enjoyed this video. You have such a gift for science communication. Fantastic stuff!

[@collinbeal]

Anybody who has played this game has no idea what they just watched. It would probably take me an entire day to fully figure out how this works as someone who knows how the game works.

[@TriggeredLimey]

@@collinbeal That makes me feel much better about myself! Thanks! 🤣

[@shiro4833]

I love how Kyle is the perfect embodiment of Izzet

[@mr.nutcracker8957]

Next up: *"I CAN RUN DOOM ON MAGIC THE GATHERING"*

[@FantasKanal]

Nobody Todd Howard: Skyrim will now be available in Magic the Gathering

[@markfergerson2145]

No, this means you can run *any game* on MTG.

[@tj5100]

@@markfergerson2145 Even Fortnite 😂😂😂

[@Halesnaxlors]

@@tj5100 Yeah, but you'd need a lot of cards. And the frame rate would be pretty shit to say the least

[@Flickstro]

Just try not to run Crysis, or your deck will spontaneously combust.

[@nyft3352]

Me: I play a basic forest, pass. Kyle: I will proceed to play my whole deck and make a computer! Me: Force of Will, nope, welcome to legacy.

[@feudaltrinity7831]

Nyft sadly unless he had something similar enough I his hand to trigger the computation that’s all it would take to destroy the entire deck 😭😭😭

[@reidyo5404]

TinyboxTim well that and him never drawing the right combo of cards lol

[@ultraatari9298]

You could just play pauper or penny format. That's like Flash or something

[@nyft3352]

@@ultraatari9298 i prefer the good old EDH, i never get tired of janky memes

[@jonathanschmidt1845]

SNOW COVERED FOREST ocd cured

[@hallowsoul2769]

Kyle: the head can read, replace, move symbols with programming Me: I took c++ for granted

[@ShriekingLlamas]

I know nothing about this game, but watching him draw the entire deck on his turn just has an aura of power. the ultimate flex. Just so casual: so now I have infinity of everything and I draw my deck.

[@DefaultMii]

Infinite combos aren't uncommon but also not consistent

[@ShriekingLlamas]

@@DefaultMii I have no memory of this place…

[@justinlathem6262]

Dr. Churchill: "I'm going to build a Turing Machine inside M:tG." Assistant: "My lord, is that legal?" Dr. Churchill: "I will *make* it [legacy] legal." *plays Power Artifact on Grim Monolith* U N L I M I T E D P O W A A A A A H ! ! ! !

[@jerryhoffman4645]

Justin Lathem I do that in Commander.... I'mma dick

[@skilz8098]

With only 4 lands the probability of getting the perfect hand on the first draw... 0.000000000000000001%

[@BeadyCosine]

I have a bad feeling about this

[@donjonmaister]

In a calculus exam... Everybody: _Pulls out a calculator_ Me: *Pulls out a deck of cards*

[@mightybatillo]

LMAO

[@Space_Potat]

You’ll also need a classmate xD

[@Space_Potat]

Not really

[@Space_Potat]

But

[@Space_Potat]

Idk

[@tinamoondina]

Having played with an infinite deck for a while, that moment when you complete the combo and just say " so here is the rest of the game..." The look you get is priceless. I also love to name a random and arbitrary number instead of just infinite, just for fun. "I draw my deck." Never gets old lol.

[@Tavor57]

"So after all this... what does the deck actually do?" "Oh I programmed it to run MTG: Arena. Wanna play a game?"

[@Jeremy-bd7sk]

Nerds: computer in minecraft Super nerds: computer in a card Game

[@epicgamer-ny4fj]

Omega nerd: computer out of pokemon card game

[@sharpfang]

If you can afford it. The deck to assemble the Turing Machine probably costs more than a top notch gaming PC.

[@davidstorrs]

Super super SOOOOPER nerds: Use a card game to implement a computer that implements Minecraft that implements a computer. (Yes, it's theoretically possible!)

[@rustycox7741]

JeremyzijdelYT Spider Solitaire: Card game in a computer

[@Lovuschka]

1943: "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." 2019: "I Built a COMPUTER in Magic: The Gathering"

[@KnownAsKenji]

This isn't a computer, it's an abacus. This invention has existed for over 3000 years.

[@Silamon2]

@@KnownAsKenji I think you maybe completely missed the point of the video... Also it is not an abacus, an abacus can add or subtract, that deck was calculating specific variables to get a desired result, aka executing a program. You can do that with an abacus too, or even a pencil and paper, but that does not make them computers. Technically the deck is not a computer either though, since the person controlling the deck is the one actually doing the calculations, just like with the abacus or the pencil and paper. In the end the only computer displayed here was the person playing the cards.

[@Quintinohthree]

@@Silamon2 Except no person is actually making decisions in the game once the computer is assembled and programmed. Every decision is made by the cards themselves and the players are merely executing those decisions, therefore making it so that the game is doing the actual computations, not the players.

[@yohumanfrisk]

@@Quintinohthree Thank you! I was just about to make the same point!

[@MatthewCampbell765]

To be fair, the 1943 quote is taken out of context. The person saying it isn't referring to all computers, ever, they're referring to a specific type of computer they'd made that they were planning on selling around 5 of.

[@chillywings]

For some time now, when teaching magic to new players I've been using the analogy that the rules are the 'operating system' and the cards are the 'programs'. This is because at some point I received a complaint while teaching, which was "you told me the rules, but then keep changing them!". This was of course due to playing cards with static abilities that modify how the game operates. Think Exploration or Teferi. Pretty fitting analogy imo. I will say.. it never surprised me that magic was Turing complete, but I will admit this is more complicated than I expected lol

[@deluuno7334]

Only a true magic player would know that Assembly worker is the first creature type you see in alphabetical order when you name a card in mtga, so when it doesn't matter that's always what you name.

[@Hunted0LessShirt]

Now I wish he somehow included a "Sarpadian Empires, Vol. VII" reference in there somewhere :D

[@IDKwhTEvZ]

Just the way Richard Garfield intended.

[@Space_Potat]

Lmao

[@davideranieri5553]

Well Richard Garfield PhD is a mathematician, so this is in fact the way he intended

[@hoovy2319]

“How does he keep getting in here?” “I c a n f i t t h r o u g h t h e d o g g i e d o o r....”

[@StevieeeTV]

I love how Thor passionately explains how a magic board game can theoretically become a computer

[@NeroLordofChaos]

I actually made a deck that does exponential growth using 2 cathar's crusade, 2 angel of thune, 2 mycoloth and 4 soul warden. It dies instantly to tainted remedy, but getting it set up and watching tokens and life hit nonillions within a few turns is hilarious. Best part was it was consistent... it routinely dumped all the components to the field by turn 6.

[@shido00]

This is a level of nerdiness I couldn't even imagine.

[@bad-am3805]

Welcome to Magic. I started playing in 1997. And it gets super nerdy.

[@alamdaali8776]

RIIIIGHT? HOW THE FCK DID HE EVEN LEARN AND EXPLAINEDDD ALL OF THAT WTFFFFFFFFFHHHH

[@qpSubZeroqp]

And I love it!

[@questiongod6303]

If means you’re not bright

[@elzabig1]

I wish I had the passion to be as nerdy as some people are with stuff like this

[@del132]

"...but I still need to perform seventeen other steps..." You sound like everyone in my EDH group.

[@nm_crazy]

20:00 "So does it just keep going, or what?" Yeah, about that...

[@ianw5663]

1:00 - everything about this tells me you are a true MtG nerd. Love it!

[@whiterabbit2786]

"I'm only running 4 lands." Sounds like Legacy alright.

[@Jolteon0163]

Andrew White that’s either way too few or way too many. (1 land for belcher, 12 for other combo decks, 18ish for blue decks, or 22-24 for non blue decks)

[@jeffshackleford3152]

Was about to comment this

[@davispo7550]

@@Jolteon0163 0 for manaless dredge!

[@gwendlyndicorci1488]

@@Jolteon0163 imagine forgetting about dredge

[@Jolteon0163]

Regular dredge falls into the 12 land category but mana less dredge is 0 land, you right

[@misterthedork]

"I built a computer out of Magic cards!" That's cool, but can it run Crysis?

[@Zantatoes]

Theoretically, yes!

[@EvanFarshadow]

Can it run Doom though?

[@ParanoeX]

you can run any video game on it. you just need to know the game's internal code. but to even get to the first frame of the first loading screen, probably even calculating the first pixel would take thousands of years. it would take the universe to die and be reborn multiple times before you have even gotten to play one full frame of the game.

[@Aedi]

Please, this is new territory. At least let them program Doom first. it can definitely run crysis, but programming it...

[@djsona5428]

Yes, but given how slow it computes, you'd get like a frame a decade.

[@seanfitzcomedy]

This is the best magic video ever made and will never be topped, your channel has my eternal subscription due to this!

[@jaybugo]

I literally couldn't even tell you the fundamentals of Magic, and yet I found this video so fascinating. Bravo

[@Prawny]

Never have I been so lost on an episode of Because Science.

[@roberthunter5059]

I have taken multiple courses in computer design, and I'm lost. I think it's the fact that I've never played Magic.

[@kayagoksoy]

At some point I just phased out...

[@zemorph42]

I've played Magic, let's see if I can help you after I watch. However, for me, that's a big "if". Restarting the video now.

[@TinaBojan]

I agree that it must be a lack of Magic: The Gathering knowedge. I'm an adjunct instructor in the Computer Science department of a university, and I was only able to follow along until the cards came out. I still plan to share the video with my students. 😉

[@tdrrr4337]

@@kayagoksoy i see what you did there

[@el_Red_Boy]

Kyle: "I told you that's weirdest game of magic you've ever seen" Me: "That was the only game of magic I've seen but I am both confused and interested"

[@Drejzer]

Thus, it was trivial to prove that it was the weirdest one you've seen.

[@davidpeabody3429]

Magic is awesome. I love it. I think if you like it you should try it its absolutley great

[@CyberGenesis1]

MTG Arena is free to play - go nuts (please dont use this insanity as an idea of how the game works)

[@Kartoffelkamm]

Well, MTG Arena is free, and online, and as long as you don´t play black or blue it´s fun for everyone involved.

[@Krishnath.Dragon]

If you like science and the fantasy genre, you will love Magic: The Gathering.

[@gorkemseckin2196]

Would love to see how this whole process would look in MTG Arena!

[@marcoreyes582]

The cards are not in Arena and if they were I'm pretty sure it would crash, MTGO maybe could handle and the cards are there

[@hamfastgamwich]

"I like when you passed the turn and I couldn't do anything" Yeah. That sounds like playing magic to me. Fun

[@ghastman7818]

"you could do math with a magic game" "so what would you need for that?" "...math"

[@mojibake6961]

Just think that someone actually went "hey you know what I'm going to research for my PHD?"

[@anneharrison1849]

Actually that's not how it came about, Alex doesn't have a PhD, he did this for fun, so even more respect!

[@mojibake6961]

@@anneharrison1849 it's just a joke, dont take it literally.

[@Michael_the_Servant]

I’m watching this and thinking, “I know this guy from somewhere.” Then I realize we played against each other in a Vintage tournament where in at least one game I won with an infinite Staff of Domination more than a decade ago and then we discussed combo decks. Great video, but I just couldn’t understand why the Ancient Tomb wasn’t untapping and triggering Mesmeric Orb, but you clearly stated lots of things were unseen. This deck was as interesting as my 50 different win condition combo deck.

[@kaja3932]

50 win conditions? Please elaborate

[@Michael_the_Servant]

@@kaja3932, it was 2002 and my friends knowing my deck making skills and that my decks were usually designed to have multiple ways to win which allowed me to overcome targeted hate and win in spite of someone purposely designing a deck to defeat mine, lead to them wanting me to make easier decks to play against. Thus they challenged me to create a deck with 50 different ways to win. It took 80 cards, and 50~52 of them were unique cards for play while the 28~30 left over made up the manabase, 13 lands if I remember correctly. I took all the Power, and the best restricted cards and placed them in the deck. It had more than 50 ways to win, because there were at least 5 ways to make unlimited mana and those could combine with many outlets, but also because some cards interacted with multiple cards to create different ways to combo and win. I once literally used Soldevi Digger and Balance off a Doomsday turn 1 with No Cards, No Creatures, No Lands and mana to recur and play Balance each turn for a decking win. It was called the Deck of Many Combos, a play on the name of the Deck of Many Things from D&D. It required a lot of skill to play, because it didn’t make sense to most people, as it was a puzzle deck in that you were just searching for different cards that would connect with what you already had. Find the missing piece win the game/eliminate a player. I usually implemented a rule that I would defeat each player with a different combo, which made it interesting, so to not make it repetitively boring in fun play. People would ask me just to show them what the win condition of the deck was so they could scoop and go to game 2, but I’d ask them how they wanted to lose confusing them. Without disruption it was a Turn 2 win about 75% of the time, and Turn 1 was about 33%. Most cards were seen as a must counter as people never knew which was going to combo off. It was fun and unique, and quite satisfying to play.

[@larslaufer301]

This is so wild. I just got back into MtG and found this and I laughed to hard. Specialy the "I cast my entire deck and you discard yours" part. Love this kind of weird thing that only trigger once but then its hillarious.

[@bakeneko3993]

Me: Brainfuck is the most stupid programming language ever. Kyle: *Makes a computer out of playing cards*

[@Gemini476]

Brainfuck isn't even that stupid, it's literally just "move pointer left", "move pointer right", "add 1", "subtract 1", "start a loop", "if the pointer is on a 0, go back to the start of the loop", "directly input a number", and "output a number". Things get complicated since it's so simplistic, but it's not *stupid*. Now Malebolge, on the other hand, where the code encodes itself as you run it? Yeah, that's just stupid (and evil).

[@Drejzer]

@@Gemini476 that sounds evil... well... the name checks out

[@lumps17]

Try Malbolge

[@Palparepa]

@@Gemini476 try INTERCAL

[@skilz8098]

@KRYMauL Assembly is not stupid. Assembly is how software communicated directly in hardware. For example the CPU will fetch the first address in memory and bring it into it's internal instruction register. Whatever is stored in this instruction register will get executed. Let's say we have assembly code that is something like mov r1, #12. This would move the immediate value of 12 into register r1 which is register that is available to the ALU within the processor. The opp code or machine code depending on size might be something like this in a 16 bit system: 0100100000001100 Here we can separate the bits into signal patterns: 01 001 000 0000-1100. The first 2 most significant bits could represents that it is a move instruction {01}, the next 3 bits represents that we are going to use register r1 to store or move the contents into represented by {001} the next three bits represents the addressing mode and in this case {000} would be immediate mode. The last 8 bits 0000-1100 would be the actual immediate value of 12 in binary that is going to be stored into r1. Then we could have on the next line in assembly mov r2, $20 which could mean take what is in address 20 and move it into register r2. This op code might look something like 01 010 001 0001 0100. Here the {01} is a move instruction, the 010 is using register 2 since 10 is 2 in binary, the next three bits 001 is now in direct address mode so the next bits 0001 0100 which is 20 in binary will look to see what is in memory at the memory address 20 (this is main memory or cache) and store its value into r2. Then on the next assembly instruction we could have something like add r3, r2, r1. The instruction code here might look something like 00 011 010 001 00001. In this case the first two bits which is 00 could represent an ALU instruction but we don't know what it is yet, The next three bits {011} would be the destination register r3, the two operands are would be {010} and {001} respectively which would be choosing registers r2 and r1 and send them to the ALU. The very last bit of a 1 at the end could mean that it is a control signal to the ALU to add the two input data paths and the destination was already set by {011} for r3. Without assembly you would have no way to talk to the hardware directly. Even high level languages regardless if they are compiled or interpreted, simulated etc. behind the scenes are converted into either assembly instructions very efficiently or into direct byte or opcodes to the targeted machine. Then the assembler will convert the assembly instructions into a binary file of all 0s and 1s that the computer or CPU can then process! Assembly is not stupid. Is it difficult yes it can be if you don't know what you are looking at or doing, but is it stupid? No! It is quite ingenious and very sophisticated to allow the programming of a computer much easier. I'd like to see you write a 500MB application in nothing but 0s and 1s by using only the architectures opcodes. Good Luck! Even advanced languages such as C/C++ Java, C# and Python wouldn't exist if it wasn't for Assembly! You also stated "Why do I have to move everything by reference"? Because when you write in assembly you are dealing with the hardware directly and when you are working with the hardware you have to load values into registers, set the data paths for either the arithmetic or logic operations, check the status flags, or do branching conditions for control flow. You have to assign memory addresses and you have to calculate them accurately. You have to handle the stack pointer and other special registers for handling function calls and return from functions calls or loops (block statements). You have to handle I/O operations and interrupts. You have to handle some exceptions where the Assembler, Compiler and OS will handle others for your. You have to know how to do pointer arithmetic and know how to assign memory address and how and when to access them. For example a block of code in C/C++ that looks like this: for ( int i = 0; i < 10; i ++ ) { //std::cout

[@snaplemouton]

"[...] to draw the entirety of my deck." Wait what?

[@noneofyourbusiness9428]

Yeah that happens sometimes in Magic.

[@mrmcawesome9746]

Step 1: Draw 1 Step 2: If there's cards in deck, repeat step 1, if not, proceed

[@Gojin91]

It's a common strategy in certain decks which use blue cards, mainly Laboratory Maniac, which changes the loss condition drawing from your deck with 0 cards into a win condition using cards like Omnicience and Enter the Infinite to play cards without paying their mana costs and to draw your entire deck respectively.

[@TinkeringBard]

I built a deck based off of the concept of drawing my entire deck while having multiple jace's erasures to destroy someone elses deck and force a loss

[@Matteo_the_Plague_Doctor]

Drawing your whole deck is not actually that hard in Magic. There's a bunch of combos(interactions between two or more cards) that do it.

[@PasseScience]

We definitely need a simulation environnement of this machine, in which we can step by step or let run the machine when it's fully deployed and that everything is forced. (actually it's not that hard to code, as it's just some conditional hardcode with the few cards on boards). (And it's fun to have to simulate with a real computer, a computer made of cards)

[@randomnico6250]

what an amazing video, so interesting. Mad respect to the people that came up with it

[@matteussilvestre8583]

But can it run DOOM?

[@monhunterz5430]

Can you run DOOM on a calculator?

[@clambo7786]

@@monhunterz5430 yes

[@gonzalovittori661]

Technically yes. IT would be slow af, but yes xD

[@stormanator01]

Technically speaking yeah

[@williameldridge9382]

Fuck Doom, can it run Crysis?!

[@Cipher_Paul]

And now... After Because Science and Because Space, here comes... ...Because Magic!!!

[@shindoko]

One Piece NaKaMa Production and thus begins the Choas Confetti that was Kyle's mind

[@skit4471]

11/10 would definitly watch.

[@Fadeddeath]

No, Kyle himself has already said, "never Because Magic!" Because MTG maybe, but a distinction is required.

[@julianfacundocalabrese1176]

2:34 i love how you just left blue as it was and erase white, clearly a very good comprehension of mtg lore

[@tristaninman9977]

At 3:11 the symbols drawn on the screen are the mana cost for playing Niv-Mizzet. I see what you did there Kyle.

[@JustDoIt12131]

16:07 "You can build a perfect machine out of imperfect parts." -Urza

[@zackblast2656]

Oh the irony

[@pain648]

"But it doesn't do anything!" "No, it does nothing"

[@clee8768]

Gotta be one of my favorite cards and flavor texts.

[@HUNKragor]

Which card?

[@pain648]

It's null road

[@HUNKragor]

@@pain648 cool thx I thought it was an Un card, sounded like it

[@xeroddqkrlord874]

reminds me of a deck a played a long time ago where you did a similar set up at the beginning but the only action your opponent has is to activate door to nothing targeting themself instead of your opponent not having any actions. It was fun and worked.

[@kireitonsi]

Imagine showing up to a tournament like "Hold on real quick I need to calculate Pi" and just forcing them to sit there for 2000 turns

[@zeekjones1]

I now draw... MY ENTIRE DECK!!! *players and onlookers gasps in disbelief*

[@Digital_Butterfly]

The Thrasios Tymna player: Yeah, I've seen that one already.

[@admkbldwn]

TIL it's theoretically possible for a game of Magic to run an AI that plays another game of Magic. ...Magic can literally play itself

[@SangerZonvolt]

Not really, since this is a turing machine, but an AI computer needs a bit more. For example this setup has no way to really safe and load states on demand. There is no RAM. I am not well versed on the matter to tell if it would be possible if you had a sufficient number of games interacting with each other. But I dont think so.

[@raymondkertezc364]

We already have Shahrazad gatherer.wizards.com/pages/card/details.aspx?name=Shahrazad

[@dimanarinull9122]

you know that there are other decks like that, even some that are actually easy to play.

[@sharpfang]

@jshowa o The computer though, has no I/O. It has the initial state and the end state but you can't modify it interactively.

[@sharpfang]

@jshowa oEven if you play that as AI vs AI with preset, pre-shuffled decks there's no way to actually shuffle the deck if a card tells you to - no good source of entropy to seed the RNG. All input, including the random seed would be pre-determined and same tape would always produce same result, even where in real game luck of the draw would be the deciding factor.

[@philipaldrich777]

Found out about Because Science after hearing about you on several magic the gathering avenues. Good guy! Cannot wait to watch more!

[@fartpimpson3843]

Love that after the initial setup it's blue cards that do the operations. Control, baby

[@captainchaos5705]

"IT'S ABOUT THE SCIENCE BOYS, IT'S NOT ABOUT THE WINS!" Best excuse for losing. XD

[@JohnTrustworthy]

This reminds of a DnD greentext where a lich built a computer out of skeletons by giving roles equivalent to diferent types of computer circuitry so that he could get infinite mana.

[@kazikmajster5650]

*By the Emperor, it's the Emperor!*

[@Jake-zn1qr]

1.5 hours into the game: "And now I will move to my *second* turn."

[@Josephhof]

Cant wait for a video blog of you playing this at a tournament