A closer look
Researchers published a paper in 2019 proving that Magic: The Gathering is officially the most computationally complex real-world game ever created, literally making it Turing complete. This means that if you arrange the exact right combination of cards, you can actually use the game's strict mechanics to simulate a functioning computer and solve complex mathematical algorithms. It is wildly impressive that a collectible card game originally designed for nerds to cast imaginary fireballs at elves inadvertently evolved into a system capable of executing actual software code. You really have to admire the sheer absurdity of a fantasy tabletop game becoming so ridiculously complicated that even seasoned computer scientists struggle to fully comprehend its theoretical limits
