Rediscovering rules for ancient board games
I&#x27;ve been wondering, how closely could a future&#x2F;alien civilization recreate Magic the Gathering&#x27;s rules given nothing but a collection that included every card and several (100? 1000?) valid decks for different formats.<p>I imagine they could get fairly close, especially thanks to reminder text.  But I wonder how older&#x2F;erattaed cards or old templating might hinder those efforts.<p>For those unfamiliar with Magic, the comprehensive rules are about 190 pages of 10-20 rules each, plus a glossary&#x2F;index.  On top of that, the golden rule of Magic is that if a card and the rules disagree, the card takes precedence.  And there are over 20,000 unique named cards, though a small number are functionally the same card as another with a different name.<p>See this link for the comprehensive rules, but note that the vast, vast majority of games don&#x27;t require an exhaustive understanding.  You can learn enough to play in 10 minutes, though you&#x27;ll probably need to learn something new each game for a little while.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;magic.wizards.com&#x2F;en&#x2F;game-info&#x2F;gameplay&#x2F;rules-and-formats&#x2F;rules" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;magic.wizards.com&#x2F;en&#x2F;game-info&#x2F;gameplay&#x2F;rules-and-fo...</a>