The Rabiah Scale (on the main website)
General forum
Posted on Nov. 12, 2018, 9:12 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
Today, Mark Rosewater posted an article about the Rabiah Scale, a measurement of how likely the game is to return to a specific plane in a standard-legal set, based upon a variety of criteria, including that plane's popularity, its mechanical identity, and if there are any unresolved storylines regarding it.
Most of his rankings were not surprising, but still disappointing, especially those for Kamigawa and Lorwyn/Shadowmoor, since I am very fond of both those planes (especially Kamigawa, since I started playing the game with the release of Eighth Edition, to which the Kamigawa block was an expansion), so I hope that there is a possibility of returning to them in a supplemental set. I was surprised that Fiora was ranked as low as it was, as it is associated with the Conspiracy sets, which are not standard legal, but I was very pleased that Dominaria was a 1, since it is my favorite plane in the game.
What does everyone else say about this? What are your thoughts on the Rabiah Scale, and Mark Rosewater's rankings?
Magic has 30+ planes already. Is there really a need to go to new ones? Yes, there is, but it is only because wizards has bland characters - seeing a new world that is more fleshed out and infinitely more intersting than the planeswalkers visiting it.
MTG is basically doctor who or an a season of Andromeda, where the guys visit a new plane, do what they do it (mostly leave it worse off than when they arrived) and leave for the next one, with the occasional climactic story ending (or like Dominaria, bait-and-switch with Belzenlok and Bolas, which came out of left field).
TLDR: Wizards needs to use existing planes and characters better, instead of relying on new car smell of a brand-new plane to carry us on.
P.S.: Honestly, after bolas is done, magic has literally almost no villains - Phyrexians and Garruk are literally the only antagonists left in the story. Where do we go from after the third Ravnica set?
November 13, 2018 4:17 a.m. Edited.
Additionally, is there a collection of the Venser scale ratings, first time I am hearing about it?
November 13, 2018 4:23 a.m.
The Venser Scale was named in the past couple weeks over on Blogatog. It's the chance that a 'Walker will show up in a Standard set. Venser is dead, and therefore a 10. Ajani is a 2, Lili is a 3.
November 13, 2018 10:05 a.m.
Even knowing Venser is dead, I am super irritated at that - he had the best arc in terms of a character in MTG - he started off as a more whimsical planeswalker, who seemed to not care too much and enjoyed having powers above and beyond what is normal (look at the art and flavor for Dispatch). He infiltrated the sliver hive mind with his creations (Venser's Sliver).
When the going got tough though, he got tougher - evidenced by his comments on Mitotic Manipulation as they journeyed into the heart of phyrexia. In the third act, he did not hesistate (much) to give up his spark for Karn.
He has an arc, where most other post-mending planeswalkers have a flat line.
November 13, 2018 10:54 a.m. Edited.
I just read the article. My thoughts:
Alara--my personal favorite plane. I'd like to see it back, just to see the long-term aftereffects of the Conflux. No Bolas, no problem. In another thread, some people mentioned that it would be more likely to come up as part of a Core Set, which is a really good idea.
Fiora--keep it as the Conspiracy plane, and let it have a developed, independent story without interference from the major story. This scale just measures Standardness, not overall returnability. I hope it stays around as non-Standard.
Innistrad--still has some Eldrazi weirdness. I found Emrakul's story kind of unsatisfying, but it got a 1, so we'll see it again.
Kaladesh--"Others feel the Indian inspiration wasn't engrained deep enough into the world." I strongly disagree with this opinion. I'm kind of tired of the historical-fantasy approach of Amonkhet, Ixalan, Innistrad, etc. I sat out Kaladesh, but enjoy the feel, the tone, and the setting. Not every plane needs to be Earth-culture-as-fantasy, and the light south Asian veneer makes me happier than a steampunk-India-with-magic approach would have. It's been a long time since we got an original plane that wasn't Earth-culture-as-fantasy.
Everything else--I generally agree with the article.
November 13, 2018 1:09 p.m.
Damn no mention of tarkir :(. I hope that doesn't mean it's at an 9 or 10 on the scale. The plane has elder dragons on it. We need to go back at some point. I know its prob a hard sell from a lore standpoint as I think all the stories are tied up and I suffers from having 3 color wedges. But damn did we get some good cards out of it
November 13, 2018 1:31 p.m.
shadow63 It's alphabetical order, not ranking order, going from Alara to Lorwyn/Shadowmoor. If it was Atarkir or Btarkir, it would show up. Looking at it, was Tarkir named after Atarka in-story?
November 13, 2018 1:48 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #10
Mark Rosewater raised an interesting issue in this article: given that Kamigawa is generally unpopular, but does have some very dedicated fans, how much could it be changed and still be considered the same plane?
I think that that is a subject worthy of discussion, possibly in its own thread: what does everyone else say about this?
November 14, 2018 8:24 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #11
Rosewater shall be posting the second part of this article on next Monday, in the case that anyone was wondering why he did not mention every plane that the game has visited, thus far.
November 22, 2018 8:58 a.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #12
Boza, there are also Ob Nixilis and Nahiri; neither of them is a large-scale threat, as are Bolas, the Eldrazi, and Phryexia, but they have much more personal connections to the heroes (compare Shishio to Enishi in Ruroni Kenshin; one was a greater threat to Japan as a whole, but the other was a much more personal threat to Kenshin). Also, Ugin seems to be good, at the moment, but he has some shady aspects to his characters, such as wishing to imprison the Eldrazi, rather than destroy them, or helping Azor to create The Immortal Sun, which ostensibly was to be used to trap Bolas, but could do the same to any planeswalker.
November 22, 2018 9:06 a.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #13
Rosewater forgot to mention Kylem, the plane on which Battlebond is set, so, after a fan mentioned that on his Tumblr page, he ranked it as a 7.
November 23, 2018 8 a.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #14
Rosewater mentioned that, prior to the Dominaria set, a return to that plane would have been difficult, because it did not have a cohesive identity, but I dislike that assertion, because I like Dominaria's great diversity; many of the other planes feel too one-dimensional and stereotypical; i.e., Innistrad is the "gothic horror plane," Ravncia is the "city plane," Theros is the "Greek mythology plane," Amonkhet is the "ancient Egyptian plane," and so forth, but Dominaria cannot be reduced to a single archetype (although I suppose that it is the closest that this game has had to a standard Tolkienian high fantasy setting, although Lorwyn could rival it, there), which is what makes it so appealing.
What does everyone else say about that? Do you feel that Dominaria's great diversity is a positive or negative trait?
November 24, 2018 1:19 a.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #15
Rosewater has posted part two of his article, here. Again, most of those rankings are not a major surprise; I am not especially interested in Mercadia or Rath, but I very much would like to see WotC explore Regatha, Shandalar, Ulgrotha, and Vryn in greater detail in the future.
Also, why is Tarkir rated lower than Alara, when both planes are very similar? Is it because Tarkir has a stronger connection to the story than does Alara?
November 26, 2018 6:28 p.m.
Because Ajani is from Alara, and Ajani is on the Gatewatch. Tarkir has no further connection to the story, as it's not like Ugin has much of an interest in the plane that could support a set.
November 26, 2018 8:14 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #17
berryjon, in that case, should not Alara have a lower rating than does Tarkir (remember that a lower rating means that returning to that plane in a standard-legal set is more likely)?
November 26, 2018 9:59 p.m.
Mark Rosewater points out that Alara is an interesting case--it's technically five planes in one. Tarkir is one plane with five groups. The five parts of Alara have little to no interaction (Esper in particular). If nothing else, Tarkir has a smoother ride mechanically.
November 26, 2018 10:06 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #19
Now that Rosewater has declared that certain planes are unpopular, how likely is it that players shall start declaring their support and fondness for those planes, in the hope of making them more popular?
berryjon says... #2
Rabiah is also a good indication of future developments, along with the Storm and the newly-named Venser Scales. If something jumps up to a 1 or two suddenly, then it's pretty much a sure sign that it's in active development and we can see it within the next 18 months.
Now, part of what we're not seeing here is a case of cost-benefit analysis. It's easier for R&D to build off of popular places, people and mechanics because a lot of the groundwork has already been done. Ravnica, for example, has a pretty solid foundation thanks to the original block and because of that, there's less work that needs to go into the set, allowing for more time to refine the set, or pick out appropriate reprints.
So when they say Dominaria is a 1 on the Scale, it's not just because its popular, but because a lot of the groundwork for the set is done behind the scenes. It has mechanics in place, characters and story already in position to roll out.
And because of this, the Scale discounts new Planes and those that haven't received any attention - like the rumored Viking Plane after Ravnica is done, or Muraganda, one of the more popular 'Never visited' Planes thanks to being implied to be Dinosaur heavy.
It also discounts that maybe a Plane might be chosen to return to with all the effort involved as a sort of fixer-upper, where Wizards might take the chance and work on a Plane to salvage its reputation - like Kamigawa. Remember, part of the problem with that Block was that it was caught between Mirroden and Ravnica, two of the most popular and powerful blocks in the game, and that colors a lot of perception about it.
And on the gripping hand, you'll notice that a lot of lower-ranked planes are from older Sets. I talked about the Great Cycles near the start of my article series, and that's come into play here. When a plane is ranked low, it might not be because it's unpopular, but rather because so very few people in the player base have actual experience with hit. I played Mercadian Masques. The set sucked! The Plane is a place I want to see again if possible, but it's so far back that next to no one actually remembers it any more. So naturally no one wants to go back to a place they have no memory of.
It's a neat thing, but it's not an absolute. Let's see what comes of the other half first though, before we can finalize any opinions.
November 13, 2018 1:42 a.m.