Magic Turing Machine v5: Rotlung Reanimator / Chancellor of the Spires

Overview - The Cards - How It Works - Difficulties - Older Versions - Future Directions - About

The Cards

The game state is as follows:

It's a four player game. We'll call the players Alex, Bob, Cathy, and Denzil. Alex controls the Turing tape of creature tokens. Each player is on 1 life.

Processing happens on Bob's turn, in order to get the assorted triggers on the stack in the right order, thanks to the AP-NAP rule.

The Battlefield

Many of these cards have been hacked by one or more castings of Artificial Evolution. (If you're worried about casting more than 4 Artificial Evolution, you can use Djinn Illuminatus and/or Izzet Guildmage.) All creatures marked with * in this list are all type-changed with Unnatural Selection to be Assembly-Workers, which thanks to a pair of hacked Dralnu's Crusades means they're also both Yetis and Zombies, so that they don't get killed by the machine's execution.

The cards on the battlefield are as follows:

Kazuul Warlord*, controlled by Alex, hacked to read "Whenever ~this~ or another Yeti enters the battlefield under your control, you may put a +1/+1 counter on each Yeti creature you control."
Kazuul Warlord*, controlled by Alex, hacked to read "Whenever ~this~ or another Zombie enters the battlefield under your control, you may put a +1/+1 counter on each Zombie creature you control."
Noxious Ghoul*, controlled by Bob, reading its original text, "Whenever ~this~ or another Zombie enters the battlefield, all non-Zombie creatures get -1/-1 until end of turn."
Noxious Ghoul*, controlled by Bob, hacked to read "Whenever ~this~ or another Yeti enters the battlefield, all non-Yeti creatures get -1/-1 until end of turn."
Aether Flash, controlled by Cathy
Thirty-six copies of Rotlung Reanimator*, all controlled by Alex, all doubly hacked with Artificial Evolution, all granted phasing with Teferi's Curse or Cloak of Invisibility, and eighteen of them phased out by Reality Ripple. The eighteen initially phased-in encode the q1 program of Yurii Rogozhin's (2, 18) universal Turing machine: between them they say
- Whenever an Ape (A0) dies, make a Siren (S1).
- Whenever a Bat (B0) dies, make an Elf (E2).
- Whenever a Pegasus (P0) dies, make a Rhino (R2M).
- Whenever a Rat (R0) dies, make an Assassin (HALT).
- Whenever a Shade (S0) dies, make a Camel (C2).
The eighteen that are phased out similarly encode the q2 program:
- Whenever an Ape (A0) dies, make a Camel (C2).
- Whenever a Bat (B0) dies, make a Camel (C2).
- Whenever a Shade (S0) dies, make a Myr (M1).
The first sixteen Reanimators were cast in the normal fashion, four by each of the players, and donated by a Bazaar Trader. The other twenty are Clones and Vesuvan Shapeshifters copying a Rotlung Reanimator. The phasing enchantments can include Teferi's Curse, Cloak of Invisibility, and Copy Enchantment, cast by any player and donated by a Bazaar Trader. These creatures and Auras must not be tokens, because tokens disappear when phased out.
All the creature types above are on the official list of Magic creature types: see How It Works for why these choices.
A rather large number of Dralnu's Crusade, all hacked. These can be token copies: we can animate one Crusade with e.g. Argent Mutation and Karn's Touch, then create many more with Rite of Replication or Spitting Image. The Crusades between them say the following:
- All Assembly-Workers are also Yetis and Zombies
- All A1s are also Yetis and A0s
- All A2s are also Zombies and A0s
- All B1s are also Yetis and B0s
- All B2s are also Zombies and B0s
- All C1s are also Yetis and C0s
- All C2s are also Zombies and C0s
- ...
- All S1s are also Yetis and S0s
- All S2s are also Zombies and S0s
- All B1Ms are also Reflections
- All F2Ms are also Reflections
- All I1Ms are also Reflections
- All K2Ms are also Reflections
- All L1Ms are also Reflections
- All R2Ms are also Reflections
- All S1Ms are also Reflections
- All Constructs are also A0s
A Curse of Death's Hold enchanting Alex and two Engineered Plagues, one set to Yetis and one set to Zombies, to undo the P/T pumps of the Dralnu's Crusades
Eight Rotlung Reanimators*, controlled by Bob. These can be token copies, as they never phase out. These are hacked to say between them:
- When a Basilisk (B1M) dies, make a Blinkmoth (B1).
- When an F2M dies, make an F2.
- When an I1M dies, make an I1.
- When a K2M dies, make a K2.
- When an L1M dies, make an L1.
- When an R2M dies, make an R2.
- When an S1M dies, make an S1.
- When a Construct dies, make a Construct.
Chancellor of the Spires, controlled and owned by Alex
Tajuru Archer*, controlled by Alex, hacked to read "Whenever ~ or another Reflection enters the battlefield under your control, you may have ~ deal damage to target creature with flying equal to the number of Reflections you control", and equipped with Blight Sickle
At least six Reflection tokens*, controlled by Alex
Necroskitter, controlled by Cathy
Vengeful Dead, controlled by Alex, hacked to read "Whenever ~ or another Assassin dies, each opponent loses 1 life."
There can be any number of lands controlled by any of the players, which helps when setting this up. There can be other enchantments and artifacts too if desired, and other creatures as long as they're turned into Assembly-Workers.

Other Zones

There are requirements for other zones as well.

Cathy's graveyard contains just one card: Time and Tide.
Other players' graveyards contain no instant or sorcery cards.

Earlier This Turn

We require that earlier this turn:

Alex has cast Gather Specimens.
That instant card needs to have been exiled or otherwise no longer be in a graveyard, for example by a Reito Lantern.

So How Does It Work?

Read all the details here!