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Comment by viridian

3 years ago

> Magic: The Gathering works like a computer (quite literally it's Turing complete). When you play a card or ability, it is put on a stack. After you're done, you need to yield - then the other player may play things on the stack too (but, they can only play "instants" - most other cards can only be played if the stack is empty). Then they must yield, and so on.

This is actually my single least favorite part of magic compared to yugioh, and I've played both a ton. Instead of a stack, yugioh has a similar first-in-first-out concept called the chain, with two major differences:

1) Every time you place a card on the stack, you yield to your opponent, who can either play a response or yield back to you, and this goes on forever until both of you have yielded without taking an action

2) cards have "spell speeds" of 1, 2, or 3 , where you can only chain an equivalent or higher speed card - this means unlike magic, you can pile up multiple sorceries/spell speed 1 cards into the same resolution queue

Both of these encourage a ton of interaction on the stack/chain, and often times yugioh games are won or lost as the result of a resolution or 5 or more cards and effects piling up and resolving, which is a relative rarity in magic outside of a few combo decks or infinites. Conversely, yugioh also presents a lot of powerful defensive options for interrupting degenerate combos, usually at a high cost.