Look at Me, I'm R&D · 2:00pm Dec 3rd, 2015
So, someone put every Magic card in existence into a neural network and told it to make more. You can see the initial output and links to numerous articles on the subject here, in the original forum post. For the latest creations, check out this Twitter. Some of them are pretty good.
Some of them are... less good.
It certainly makes sense. Magic: the Gathering's terminology is more like the regimented grammar of a programming language than anything in which you could have a conversation; it's not surprising to see someone teach an AI how to put the pieces in the right order. And as you can see, it's figuring out how to make cards that aren't just sensible, but actually playable and color pie-compliant.
Still, there's no such thing as a perfect Magic card. Trying to optimize playability, balance, psychographic appeal, and all the other factors could lead to a dead end when the computer can't innovate beyond the initial data... though it has created some new keywords. It just hasn't defined them. Alternately, the system could continually refine its process as it explores design space on a journey towards an unreachable pinnacle of perfection.
In other words, this guy may have created Jin-Gitaxias.
...this is the greatest thing. Ever.
I've known about this for a while. It is indeed glorious.
Behold blessed perfection...eventually. After it stops with that Yus Chasere nonsense.
I wish I could give all my creatures Tromple.
Fascinating. Borest walk sounds like a fun mechanic
I knew about this because of Desert Bus, but I didn't look through it properly.
I need to stop now before it becomes 3AM.
This is amazing. Thank you for salvaging a morning that began with being woken up early to clean up after my hated dog's liquid leavings.
3589378
And now it's reading articles about itself! Isn't artificial intelligence amazing?
3589338
You're welcome! I heard about it through the Friendship is Optimal forum.
3589367
Not every experiment is directly useful, but even the failures teach us what not to do.
3589374
Personally, I want to figure out what fuseback is. I think it's similar to S.N.O.T.'s ability.
3589378
Hope you don't mind me digging up your baby photos.
3589422
Glad I could help brighten up your day.
Interesting blog post, I don't even know how to play magic and I was still able to enjoy it.
3589378 who is Jin Gitaxias, why us it your user name, and what did FOME mean by that name it this blog.
~Leonzilla
I left a lengthy comment in the Optimalverse thread, so here I'll just point out how the URL gives a different interpretation to your title. Rainbow Dash is best research scientist!
3589718
Jin-Gitaxias is the praetor of the blue-aligned Phyrexian faction, the Progress Engine. In non-card game terms, his a mad scientist who looks like Jack Frost as designed by Cadillac and H. R. Giger. He's a big believer in the continual process of discovery and refinement, believing perfection to be a journey rather than a destination. In his case, that journey involves a lot of vivisection.
Okay, I learned pretty quickly not to be drinking anything while going through that Twitter feed. XD XD XD
Someone used the same kind of neural network to make a bunch of Hearthstone cards too. My favorite result from that experiment is Blood Manos, which has the OP-as-f*ck effect of "ALL minions".
3590254 how the hey could anyone summon something with such an absurd cost? (I think...10 seems like a lot)
It's ability sounds like something so extreme that the minute you summon it, you are pretty much guarantied to win.
Is that the case?
again I know nothing about magic so I'm just making assumptions.
3590466
I don't play Hearthstone, so I'm not sure whether or not that makes any sense.
3590482
Your assessment is largely correct. Jin's abilities will clinch games... but by the time you can cast him, the game is probably over. However, that assumes that you aren't using one of the many effects that can put a creature into play without casting it. And if you're playing Jin-Gitazias, odds are that you have some of them in your deck. He makes one heck of a show and tell presentation.
I feel like I should be squeeing here, but I don't know Magic enough to really understand what's so cool here.
Aside from a computer making a passable attempt at making Magic cards.
3590482 I played Jin-Gitaxias in my Seance combo deck as an alternate win condition. For the most part, I cheated it into play with a reanimation spell (Unburial Rites).
It was awesome when it came out and survived. ("Dies to removal.") The card was more powerful when played online, just because most players didn't have MTGO set up properly to pause before its +7 cards ability went on the stack.
Cool.
But seriously, this is just the sort of random thing that would trigger the collapse of this plane.
3590504 I see, so there are ways to special summon as well.
You know what would be funny, If a player ends up playing show and tell just so that both players end up placing down their own Jin Gitaxias simultaneously therefore canceling each other out.
Either that, or both players would be drawing new hands each and every turn.
3591087 lol, the Seance combo involved laboratory maniac I presume.
3591273 Mill your one copy of Mirror-Mad Phantasm, put a token copy on the battlefield with Séance on your opponent's turn, shuffle the token copy into your library, mill your library because there isn't another copy of Mirror-Mad Phantasm in your deck, put a token copy of Laboratory Maniac on the battlefield on your upkeep, fail to draw a card and win the game.
Here's the list I played (Scars of Mirrodin-Innistrad Standard):
Combo
4 Séance
1 Mirror-Mad Phantasm
1 Laboratory Maniac
Card draw and filtering
4 Think Twice
4 Desperate Ravings
4 Faithless Looting
Minor reanimation subtheme
4 Solemn Simulacrum
2 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
3 Unburial Rites
Necessary evil
4 Day of Judgment
Mana Base
4 Sphere of the Suns
4 Sulfur Falls
4 Clifftop Retreat
3 Seachrome Coast
4 Evolving Wilds
3 Island
3 Plains
2 Mountain
1 Swamp
3589817
Flight goggles, lab goggles, same difference. Now let's blow something up!
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Only if the neural network figures out how to use actual magic, then tries to cast one of the nonsensical cards. I'd say the odds are worse than an LHC-generated black hole consuming the Earth.
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Because of the way the effects are timed, two Jins on the field would mean that at the end of each player's turn, that player would draw seven cards, have a brief window of opportunity to use the subset of them that can be played at any time, and then discard them... unless he or she had one of the several cards that say "You have no maximum hand size." Everything has an answer in Magic, even the answers.
Also, Gatherer should come in handy to give you some idea of what the cards in Alaborn's deck do.
3591686 I looked up every card involving the combo and I feel that way enough to give me an understanding of the process more or less for achieving the desired wining conditions.
I would look up the other cards too, but I feel like reading the rules might actually be more useful at this point so that I stop needing to figure out all the magic terms by context.
But there's two questions I like answered,
1) what are the primary or most useful/efficient forms/ways of drawing in the game?
And
2) Does the game has any card capable if shuffling every card in your graveyard back into your deck and reshuffle.
If there is, combining those two aspects could potentially result in some serious strategy.
Or so I would think.
3591780
1. There are over a thousand different cards that let you draw more cards. Depending on the format, any number of different effects might be used to supplement the one draw you get on each of your turns. Beyond the absurdly overpowered Ancestral Recall, determining the best one is more a question of what the deck is composed of and wants to do. Bear in mind there are also "tutors," cards that allow you to just look through your deck for a specific card, named after the equally undercosted Demonic Tutor. Both cards are from the very first Magic set, before they realized just how good such effects are.
2. There are more than a dozen such effects.
3591886 man competitive play must be a hell of work's, and I thought that pokemon tcg was complex when you are trying to be the very best that no one ever was.