Slashdot Mirror


Magic: the Gathering Is Turing Complete

TsukiKage writes "A 50-card M:tG combo for four players is demonstrated that is used to construct a simple Turing machine, performing arbitrary computations just by following the rules of Magic and card text thereafter."

87 of 135 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Slashdot is for fucking losers. by evafan76 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I guess that's why you're here.

  2. I see... by NIK282000 · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...an XKCD comic in the near future.

    --
    Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all
    1. Re:I see... by rdebath · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Hasn't he already done that one ... https://xkcd.com/505/

  3. Finally! by sirboxalot · · Score: 5, Funny

    A use for Carnival of Souls.

    1. Re:Finally! by davewoods · · Score: 1

      Hah! Yeah right.

  4. Re:Magic? by evafan76 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Who in their right mind would play such obvious trash?

    Surprisingly, lots of people.

    People pull knifes on each other over Magic in my hood.

  5. Such vitriol for M:TG in these early comments by Gideon+Wells · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Like we /.ers are to talk about nerds or geekiness. Half of us would install a toaster in our cars just so we could have a toaster to install linux on while stuck in traffic. Yeesh.

    --
    by Anonymous Coward: I, for one, welcome the shift from car analogies to pizza analogies. um.. overlords?
    1. Re:Such vitriol for M:TG in these early comments by DigiShaman · · Score: 2

      I used to play M:TG until it got all complicated with poison counters. Playing started to hurt my head after just one drink. I suppose there are people whom enjoy it all the more with their superior short-term memory capacity compared to my own. Either way, at some point a game can get so complicated that it's no longer fun to play. As always, YMMV.

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    2. Re:Such vitriol for M:TG in these early comments by dcherryholmes · · Score: 2

      You should have moved on to V:TES (or Jyhad, as the old time players still call it). It was Garfield's second game, which he explicitly designed from the ground up as multiplayer instead of 1 on 1.

      A) Card rarity is linked to how many copies you'd likely want in your deck, regardless of the strength of the card (and there are no card limits).

      B) As a less mechanistic and more social game by its nature, it's quite conducive to drinking while playing, on many levels.

    3. Re:Such vitriol for M:TG in these early comments by donaggie03 · · Score: 4, Informative

      That's one of the reasons for the 2 year set rotation. Only the last 2 years worth of cards are allowed in standard play. (There's also the obvious reason of requiring people to buy more cards.) There haven't been any cards with poison counters in at least the last 2 expansions (that's when I started paying attention to the game) and I'm pretty sure there's none in the upcoming one either. The developers try new and different things to try to keep the game fresh and interesting to long time players, and it seems to be hit and miss. I think they've been fairly decent at hitting, but poison counters are a good example of a miss, afaic.

      --
      Three days from now?? Thats tomorrow!! ~Peter Griffin
    4. Re:Such vitriol for M:TG in these early comments by alzoron · · Score: 2

      The last two years have actually seen a resurgence of poison counters. Starting with the 2010 Fall Block of Scars of Mirrodin and the follow up expansion New Phyrexia in 2011 they combined the Poison and Wither mechanics together to create the Infect mechanic. Anyone that was discouraged by poison before would probably not be to happy with it more recently.

    5. Re:Such vitriol for M:TG in these early comments by Keen+Anthony · · Score: 1

      So you made MTG into a drinking game as well?

    6. Re:Such vitriol for M:TG in these early comments by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      No, the main reason is that they want to sell more cards. It's also a real bitch playtesting many different revisions of cards. I personally quit playing a bit after 4th edition came out. In those days the game would be very complicated if you were still using Alpha Beta and or Unlimited cards as you'd have classes of cards that no longer existed. I think the one that pop to mind were the mono artifiacts.

      Some of the counters were kind of cool, I liked Goblin Warrens, but IIRC it had issues with balance and the rest o the set wasn't very good.

    7. Re:Such vitriol for M:TG in these early comments by donaggie03 · · Score: 1

      I started playing about a month before 2013 came out and so far I haven't seen many of the cards you describe. Maybe I haven't noticed because I didn't know they existed, I don't know. Luckily, those sets are going bye-bye in October anyway.

      --
      Three days from now?? Thats tomorrow!! ~Peter Griffin
    8. Re:Such vitriol for M:TG in these early comments by Hatta · · Score: 1

      MTG deserves vitriol, not because it's geeky, but because it's a money sink. Why spend a lot of money buying deck after deck when you can buy one RPG rule book and play indefinitely?

      If you want to play cards, we can play bridge or euchre, or hearts or spades, or bullshit. I'll even buy a special deck so we can play Uno. But what I won't do is buy deck after deck looking for the cards that give me an advantage. That's what's objectionable about MTG.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    9. Re:Such vitriol for M:TG in these early comments by sebtoast · · Score: 1

      That's weird, I have the opposite observation, I used to play when I was a kid and recently restarted playing to show my 12 yo and I feel like everything is so simple now. They are no more "flip a coin card" and no more card that the text is so long that it fills up the whole space and is written in minuscule letters.

    10. Re:Such vitriol for M:TG in these early comments by PuZZleDucK · · Score: 1

      ...install a toaster in our cars just so we could have a toaster to install linux on while stuck in traffic.

      Genius! ... back in a minute... I've just got to go, umm, buy something...

      --
      Can a person program a new solution to a problem? Why should anyone be able to stop such a thing? -Richard Stallman
    11. Re:Such vitriol for M:TG in these early comments by Card+Zero · · Score: 1

      They did make a silver bullet card for poison decks, but it's also pretty useful when played in conjunction with creatures with Persist, like this one. Instant win condition.

  6. Amazing by DJ+Jones · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Now this is truly "News for Nerds"

    Speaking of, what the hell happened to the motto? When did that happen?

    1. Re:Amazing by boarder8925 · · Score: 1

      I now have a suggestion for the new logo.

    2. Re:Amazing by donaggie03 · · Score: 1

      Now this is truly "News for Nerds"

      Too bad it fails at the "stuff that matters" part. (Just being snarky. I find the article interesting actually.)

      --
      Three days from now?? Thats tomorrow!! ~Peter Griffin
    3. Re:Amazing by pjt33 · · Score: 1

      This is very definitely olds for nerds. But then you didn't read the article, so you didn't see the date.

  7. Re:Perfect example of MtG players... by Rei · · Score: 5, Funny

    This guy didn't just earn his nerd card, he earned a nerd obelisk in his front yard.

    --
    No matter how kind you are, German children are kinder.
  8. Re:News for nerds by RobotRunAmok · · Score: 1

    There is a group of guys at my workplace who do it every day on their lunch hour.
    And not a one of them would understand this story

    Or how to make a baby.

  9. My thoughts... by madmarcel · · Score: 4, Interesting

    My thoughts in order:
    - Have I got the cards to do this?
    - What cards could I substitute to achieve the same thing?
    - Could I optimize or simplify this and reduce the number of required cards?
    - Do *really* I want to sit down and figure this out?
    - Could I simulate this in one of the many (open source) mtg cardgame engines?

    1. Re:My thoughts... by darkfeline · · Score: 1

      People have already made complete processors on minecraft. I believe that's the limit on recursive computational implementation on today's hardware.

    2. Re:My thoughts... by AK+Marc · · Score: 3, Funny

      Does the computer run faster if you have more rare cards in the deck?

    3. Re:My thoughts... by madmarcel · · Score: 1

      ...and what is the computational impact of using Mythics vs Rares?

    4. Re:My thoughts... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      You have to actually read the explanation. They're manipulating cards' text with the cards "Artificial Evolution" and "Mind Bend", and then using the drill sergeant to pull the chancellor from the deck. He then dies to a combination of the ghouls + aether flash, and gets wheeled back into the library.

      Seriously, this is all in the "How it works" part of the explanation, and it does make sense. It's not something that could ever come close to happening in a normal game, but it obeys the rules if the situation were set up as described.

    5. Re:My thoughts... by pjt33 · · Score: 1

      The construction predates Mythics, so there may be some new cards which allow it to be optimised.

    6. Re:My thoughts... by ZeroSumHappiness · · Score: 1

      So make a Turing computer that acts as a Minecraft server, then emulate a 32-bit CPU on Minecraft on M:TG, then run Linux on Minecraft on M:TG...

    7. Re:My thoughts... by KhabaLox · · Score: 1

      What I want to know is if you could actually get this combo off in a game. Even with all four players colluding, I think it would be difficult. Manipulating the Chancellor of Spires to the top of the Library would be one of the more difficult aspects. I wonder if you'd need any other cards they didn't include to make it a "playable combo" (e.g. Library of Leng to increase hand size).

      --
      Ceci n'est pas un sig.
  10. Legend unique in play by SemiEvilDM · · Score: 1

    I don't think that this is valid.
    1) "...following the rules of Magic"
    2) "At any time, three Teysas are in play"
    Back when Legends were originally released, you could only have one Legend card in play at a time. If another player summoned them, the previous Legend card had to be destroyed. Has that rule changed?

    1. Re:Legend unique in play by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      They have that covered with Mirror Gallery, which eliminates the Legend Rule while in play.

    2. Re:Legend unique in play by donaggie03 · · Score: 1

      The cards are now called "legendary creature" or "legendary land" etc. The cards have creature names or land names, but their type is legendary creature. You can have more than one legendary card in play, but not more than one with the same name. It's a slightly different rule, but your point is still valid. You cannot have 3 "Legendary Creature - Teysa, Orzhov Scion" cards in play at the same time. As soon as the second card is played, both the first and second card go bye-bye.

      --
      Three days from now?? Thats tomorrow!! ~Peter Griffin
    3. Re:Legend unique in play by donaggie03 · · Score: 1

      Yup, I should have rtfa before I replied (below). For completeness, the card text of Mirror Gallery is simply: The "legend rule" doesn't apply.

      --
      Three days from now?? Thats tomorrow!! ~Peter Griffin
    4. Re:Legend unique in play by retchdog · · Score: 1

      so you can destroy an opposing legend by playing your own copy? is that intentional?

      --
      "They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
    5. Re:Legend unique in play by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

      Yes, and in fact, it makes for lots of lulz when you play a clone for 4 mana, and end up with the only copy of a specific legend. Alternatively, have a vesuvan doppleganger out, and if they ever play a legend you can just copy it at the start of your upkeep.

      Clone / Doppleganger / Licid decks are so much fun....

    6. Re:Legend unique in play by retchdog · · Score: 1

      yeah, that's how i remember it being back when i played very briefly (revised). however, i agree with the argument for balance.

      i just now looked back at magic for the first time in ages... weird. no more mana burn.

      --
      "They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
    7. Re:Legend unique in play by retchdog · · Score: 1

      what he was saying is, you copy the opponent's legend with the blue "Clone" card, and then play your own legend to destroy the opponent's original.

      not very efficient, but it's good for lulz.

      --
      "They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
  11. Re:Perfect example of MtG players... by donaggie03 · · Score: 2

    This guy didn't just earn his nerd card, he earned a nerd obelisk in his front yard.

    That sounds like it could be flavor text on a magic card . .

    --
    Three days from now?? Thats tomorrow!! ~Peter Griffin
  12. Re:I hope it was just for fun... by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    If you can build NAND gates (or NOR gates for that matter) out of your materials, you have everything you need to build a Turing-complete machine.

  13. Re:News for nerds by c0lo · · Score: 4, Funny

    There is a group of guys at my workplace who do it every day on their lunch hour. And not a one of them would understand this story

    Or how to make a baby.

    make baby

    As you can see above, baby making is not hard. Even the deployment, painful as it is, is an one-off per child.
    What should worry anyone is: keeping input feed at right levels and correlated with "running"/"longjump"-ing/whatever, anti-malware protection, constant patching (as in: a new iGadget to keep in sync with the other "daemons" in the scho... err... system) and all other maintenance activities.
    These letting aside no possible way of hardware upgrades for the tens of years of lifetime and not manufacturer warranty from the very first day.

    --
    Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
  14. Recursive by IorDMUX · · Score: 4, Funny

    Do you realize what this means?

    Given sufficient time and mana, we could simulate a game of Magic within a game of Magic!

    Vaguely related

    --
    >> Standing on head makes smile of frown, but rest of face also upside down.
    1. Re:Recursive by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

      Somehow I feel like that would run into a brick wall because of some of the built in golden rules of magic which cannot be altered or violated.

    2. Re:Recursive by mister_playboy · · Score: 1
      --
      Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law ::: Love is the law, love under will
    3. Re:Recursive by mister_playboy · · Score: 1

      Screwed up the first link, should have been:

      http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=980

      --
      Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law ::: Love is the law, love under will
    4. Re:Recursive by IorDMUX · · Score: 2

      Riiiight. I was wondering how War Mammoths fit into your master plan of altering reality.

      --
      >> Standing on head makes smile of frown, but rest of face also upside down.
  15. Due credit by ripper234 · · Score: 2

    It's only fair to point that this article was generated out of this question on Draw3Cards (Disclaimer: I'm the owner of D3C)

    1. Re:Due credit by ripper234 · · Score: 1

      Nice, didn't see it, thanks. I'm just happy to see something that came out of a site I built featured on Slashdot, even if not the site itself (first for me)

  16. Re:Hacked texts? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    What he means is that he has cards with effects like "Change the text of target card from a to b..." When he uses one of those compeltely legal cards, he refers to it as hacked. So he is using proper legal rules.

  17. Re:News for nerds by NoSleepDemon · · Score: 3, Funny

    Even worse, with the baby code base, recursion is deeply frowned upon!

  18. Re:Not so sure. by TuringTest · · Score: 3, Informative

    There *îs* a card for changing the colors in the text, and the guy's using it (and a second one to change creature type). The card modification is thus done according to the rules.

    In fact, almost any magic effect in MtG is a change in the initial rules, so that's Magic for you

    --
    Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
  19. Re:What about me? by TuringTest · · Score: 1

    I don't know about you, but today I feel powerful.

    --
    Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
  20. Re:News for nerds by queBurro · · Score: 1

    make: *** No rule to make target `baby'. Stop.

    --
    sag
  21. Clarke was right by kav2k · · Score: 5, Funny

    Any sufficiently advanced technologyis indistinguishable from Magic.

  22. Re:Reminded of a line from a movie... by Tablizer · · Score: 2

    When Linux runs on Dungeons & Dragons, THEN you'll see a truly cosmic nerdgasm; a sight to behold......okay, maybe not.

  23. Re:Reminded of a line from a movie... by queBurro · · Score: 1, Funny

    well there's an 8-bit processor in minecraft... http://boingboing.net/2010/11/12/working-8-bit-cpu-in.html

    --
    sag
  24. Re:Not so sure. by Mabhatter · · Score: 1

    It's not fair that Minecraft gets all the geek love. And in-game programming devices.

  25. Re:Not so sure. by Arancaytar · · Score: 2

    almost any magic effect in MtG is a change in the initial rules

    That makes me want to see the game "Mornington Crescent: The Gathering".

  26. If you make enough changes by aglider · · Score: 1

    you can make Turing complete also Yu-Gi-Ho, Scopa and even Monopoly.
    Anyway, next week I'll demonstrate that SlashDot is Turing complete and NP-hard at the same time.

    --
    Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
    1. Re:If you make enough changes by anyGould · · Score: 1

      Read the article again - while the situation is contrived (a bunch of players aren't likely to ever accidentally create a Turing Maching during a Magic game), they are following all the rules of the game - no external cheats required.

      Pretty sure you're not going to pull that off in Monopoly.

    2. Re:If you make enough changes by aglider · · Score: 1

      ... is it ok for you to slightly change the meaning of a few cards just to accommodate the experiment?
      If so, also Monopoly will be OK. More or less.

      --
      Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
    3. Re:If you make enough changes by Sparton · · Score: 1

      ... is it ok for you to slightly change the meaning of a few cards just to accommodate the experiment?

      I think you're missing the part where they're "slightly chang[ing] the meaning of a few cards" via actual Magic cards.

  27. The next logical step: by QilessQi · · Score: 1

    Use a MTG Turing Machine to create a computer running Minecraft, then use that implementation of Minecraft to create a MTG Turing Machine simulator.

    1. Re:The next logical step: by Bob+the+Super+Hamste · · Score: 1

      Now that would just be perverse.

      --
      Time to offend someone
  28. Re:Not so sure. by Talderas · · Score: 1

    Dwarf Fortress did it first.

    --
    "Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
  29. Re:Web design, geeks suck at it by RaceProUK · · Score: 1

    Web design, geeks suck at it

    OMG you sound like my web design teacher. Is that you? Shed fail you if the colors clashed.

    Good - I don't want to be blinded when I view a website.

    --
    No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
  30. Re:News for nerds by RaceProUK · · Score: 1

    apt-get a-life

    Only on Slashdot.

    --
    No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
  31. Re:News for nerds by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    make baby

    When you figure out how to make -j4 baby, I'll be impressed. (Hell, that didn't even use to work with the Linux kernel!)

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  32. Re:News for nerds by arth1 · · Score: 2

    apt-get? Surely the proper way to make babby is:

    $ man woman
    $ nice date
    $ touch woman
    $ partprobe
    $ fsck
    $ sleep 23241600
    $ emerge baby

  33. Re:News for nerds by icebraining · · Score: 1

    Obviously you forgot to fork.

  34. Re:Web design, geeks suck at it by aicrules · · Score: 1

    It must be tough to go outside where colors can "clash" all the time.

  35. Re:News for nerds by leonardluen · · Score: 2

    i think you need to run "mount" on "girlfriend" or "wife" first. and if you don't know where they are you may have to run "find" before that.

  36. Re:Web design, geeks suck at it by RaceProUK · · Score: 1

    I see what you did there.

    Are you immune to chromostereopsis? I know I'm not.

    --
    No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
  37. Re:Perfect example of MtG players... by superwiz · · Score: 1

    Brilliant people doing useless things.

    But enough about chess.

    --
    Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
  38. This is a less bloated script by pyzondar · · Score: 1

    quote | write woman ttyear1
    touch woman
    finger woman
    mount woman
    init 1

    It is not perfect though; overuse may lead to resource depletion and/or dependency hell.

  39. Re:News for nerds by fibonacci8 · · Score: 1

    the trouble is that people often confuse the fsck line with one of the following: $ man | woman or $ man >> woman

    --
    Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
  40. Re:Not so sure. by HeckRuler · · Score: 3, Informative

    Dwarf Fortress did it first with diabolical machinations dreamt up by fell craftsdwarves whose infernal machines are powered by the blood of kittens. No, literally, THE BLOOD OF KITTENS. I've seen perpetual motion water wheels with blood as the medium and catsplosions are a common method of pest control. The founts of blood splattering into the throne room where the dark emperor sits and laughs are merely a side benefit. Using pressure plates to trigger floodgates leads to all sorts of possibilites. Dark horrible possibilities.

  41. Re:Reminded of a line from a movie... by HeckRuler · · Score: 2

    Linux runs on Dungeons & Dragons

    Hey, DM, can my time-traveling iron golem be running Linux?

    Do people not understand that traditional RPGs have an open format which allows you to do anything you can think of? Are people so stuck in their box that if it's not in the rulebook/list of buttons/daily powers that the action is impossible? This is the reason I play D&D in an age of ubiquitous computing and limitless processing. No amount of rules can cover the breadth of a human's imagination.

  42. Re:News for nerds by dpu · · Score: 1

    Just in case this is someone I know (as I am one of a group of guys who play Magic - and Munchkin and Dominion and Settlers of Cataan - at lunchtime at work), I do understand this story :)

    --
    Dammit, I meant to post that anonymously!
  43. Re:Slashdot is for fucking losers. by virgnarus · · Score: 2

    Since you're also posting, I guess that means it took one to know one, and my reply here at Slashdot does only to confirm the validity of my accusation.

  44. Solves a Fundamental Problem in CompSci by Jouster · · Score: 2

    It gets better! Because the behavior of the underlying hardware in a Turing machine is considered axiomatic and unfailing, the following M:tG CR sections:

    104.4b If a game that’s not using the limited range of influence option (including a two-player game) somehow enters a “loop” of mandatory actions, repeating a sequence of events with no way to stop, the game is a draw. Loops that contain an optional action don’t result in a draw.
    716.1b Occasionally the game gets into a state in which a set of actions could be repeated indefinitely (thus creating a “loop”). In that case, the shortcut rules can be used to determine how many times those actions are repeated without having to actually perform them, and how the loop is broken.
    716.3 Sometimes a loop can be fragmented, meaning that each player involved in the loop performs an independent action that results in the same game state being reached multiple times. If that happens, the active player (or, if the active player is not involved in the loop, the first player in turn order who is involved) must then make a different game choice so the loop does not continue.

    mean that this M:tG Turing machine solves the halting problem! The consequences of the fact that, without the halting problem, a Turing machine would never have been described are left as an exercise for the reader.

  45. Re:Not so sure. by josath · · Score: 1

    Apprentice gave me some error about couldn't open Plains.jpg, then repeated "Send buffer full, try again later" and then crashed on my first attempt to play a game. Second attempt I got into a game, but when I drew 7 cards it gave "List index (59) out of bounds." Interface still sucks, you have to know all the commands and all the rules of the game to play it (compared to the commercial M:tG games, which suck for other reasons, but at least they help you with the rules)

    --
    sig? uhh, umm, ok
  46. Re:I hope it was just for fun... by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    "Not quite. You also need wires to connect the NANDs together, and those wires must be capable of fanout, so really, it's NAND gates + wires + wire junctions."

    Well, that's true. The gates need a way to communicate with each other. But in most cases the "wires" are a trivial matter. In Conway's "Life", information transfer took the form of "gliders" that could travel from "gate" to "gate".

  47. Re:Hacked texts? by KhabaLox · · Score: 1

    he refers to it as hacked.

    It's nice to know that the slang from the original card from Alpha/Beta/Revised ("Magical Hack") survives.

    --
    Ceci n'est pas un sig.
  48. Re:Web design, geeks suck at it by RaceProUK · · Score: 1

    I can see it now (on YouTube): Attack Of The British 'U's!

    --
    No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun