Comment by saghm
3 years ago
Tangentially, this is why I've often found it a bit easier to teach MTG to friends who also are programmers than in general; being able to tell a fellow programmer "instants are put on a stack when cast, and then are popped off the stack when they resolve" ("instant" is the term that MTG ended up standardizing on now that "interrupts" are no longer a card type) is a quick shortcut that they always end up understanding. When teaching someone who doesn't already have a mental concept of a stack data structure, I can explain how the analogy of a "stack" works, but it often takes a bit of playing and seeing it in action for them to fully internalize how it works.
Funny, as with the cards, this should be a bit easier to literally act out. Intent to play a card is to lay it down. If someone has an instant, they can put theirs on top.
That only works with cards you play from the hand, but effects that you activate on a permanent (e.g. by tapping it) also go on the stack.