# Magic: The Gathering is Turing Complete

@article{Churchill2021MagicTG,
title={Magic: The Gathering is Turing Complete},
author={Alexandrea Churchill and Stella Rose Biderman and Austin Herrick},
journal={ArXiv},
year={2021},
volume={abs/1904.09828}
}
• Published 1 March 2019
• Computer Science
• ArXiv
$\textit{Magic: The Gathering}$ is a popular and famously complicated trading card game about magical combat. [] Key Method To do this, we present a methodology for embedding an arbitrary Turing machine into a game of $\textit{Magic}$ such that the first player is guaranteed to win the game if and only if the Turing machine halts. Our result applies to how real $\textit{Magic}$ is played, can be achieved using standard-size tournament-legal decks, and does not rely on stochasticity or hidden information. Our…
19 Citations

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