Rabiah Scale

[Analisa Wack]

TheRabiah Scale is a ranking of the likelihood that a given plane will be revisited as the setting of a future Standard-legal set. Planes are ranked from 1 (very likely) to 10 (very unlikely).

As one of the Rosewater Scales, the Rabiah Scale is analogous to the Storm Scale for mechanics. The Storm Scale is named for the storm mechanic, which has proven so developmentally problematic that it will almost certainly never be reprinted in a Standard-legal set. In the same way, the Rabiah Scale is named for the plane of Rabiah, which will almost certainly never be revisited because it is not Wizards of the Coast's intellectual property.[1][2]

While Rosewater has made two blog posts about the Rabiah Scale, he has not given a level-by-level description of each rating, simply summarizing it as "most likely" to "least likely" from 1 to 10.[4][5][6] Therefore, the following descriptions are based on those described in the original Storm Scale article:

It should be noted that since most sets focus on just one plane, whereas many mechanics appear in each set, ranking interpretations should be adjusted accordingly. In other words, a plane ranked 1 on this scale will still not appear in every set, whereas a mechanic ranked 1 on the Storm Scale (an evergreen mechanic) probably will.

Some planes have attained high popularity or are relatively easy to return to. These include Ravnica and Dominaria, both of which have already hosted multiple sets and are both appealing and complex enough to ensure a return. Some, like Theros and Innistrad, occupy a specific niche that has proven exceptionally popular to fans, regardless of overall reactions to individual sets.

A majority of higher ranked (+7) planes belong to pre-Revisionist storylines, at times conflicting with modern flavor. These include Rabiah itself and Mercadia. A number are higher ranked due to having been destroyed, such as Old Phyrexia, Serra's Realm, and Tolvada, the only way to make a set in them being through flashback. Amonkhet is noted as ambiguous in that regard, being rather popular but seemingly destroyed.

The return to Kamigawa in Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty was noted as being the highest rated (least likely) plane that did return to a Standard-legal set, having been rated an 8 initially and still a 7 most recently before its return. The plane was initially dismissed due to low sales as well as alleged rejection by Western fans, but while it suffered changes to its original flavor to facilitate its return, the marketing and the actual cards utilized nostalgia for the plane and the original block, capturing the set's themes of tradition vs technology.

Many years ago, on my blog (Blogatog on Tumblr), I created a scale, dubbed the Storm Scale, to indicate how likely I thought a mechanic was to return to a Standard-legal set, from 1 being very likely to 10 being very unlikely. It was called the Storm Scale because the mechanic storm was a 10. The scale existed so I could answer questions about how likely I thought a mechanic was to return.

This criterion is very similar to the Storm Scale. Basically, did the audience like it? The more all of you like a particular world, the greater the chance of its return. I'm using data wherever I have access to it, but some of the earlier worlds, I'm using more anecdotal evidence as we didn't do market research in the early days.

This category examines whether the world has mechanical associations. Is there something for us to mechanically design around? Is there a component that the audience associates with this world that would create excitement for its return?

This category examines what space there is to create new things in this world. Sets, even returns, have to introduce new material. Is this world set up to allow new exploration? A big part of this category is how much the earlier visit(s) did to hint at other aspects of the world. The more room for expansion, the easier it will be to return there.

This category talks about what story threads were left last time we were there. In other words, does returning to this world allow us to finish telling a story we started when we were there last? Note that this is weighted by how much the audience cares about a certain storyline.

Players liked the individual shards more than they did the world as a whole, and the popularity of the shards varied quite a bit with Esper being the most popular and Naya being the least. When all the data was collected, this set ended near the top of the bottom half (although individual shards ended up in the top half).

Alara is the arc (or shard) world, mechanically speaking. That is, it's about three-color combinations where each group is a color and its two allies. There simply isn't a way we could return without three color arcs playing a major role. That's both a curse and a blessing. It's a positive as we know what we need to build around and what players would expect. It's a negative as three-colored worlds are very hard to build without impacting Standard in problematic ways. (If you enable three-color play, you essentially enable five-color play and the color pie acts less as a safety valve.) Additionally, each world has its own mechanical identity. The biggest problem with this is they don't all blend well with one another, making Limited hard to design.

Alara is an odd world in that in many ways it's actually five worlds, as the story began with each shard living in isolation with one another. The individual shards each have a very clear creative identity. The problem is on our first visit, the shards started coming together which makes this world's identity a bit muddled as five yummy flavors don't necessarily mix into one tasty concoction.

Alara is a world with a lot of issues for a return. It has a strong mechanical identity, but it's something that has execution issues. The individual shards have a strong creative identity, but less so as you blend them together. There are reasons the story could want to return to Alara, but nothing is forcing us there. I gave it a 5 because I believe there's a better chance we'll return than not, but it's far from a sure thing.

The mechanics were all tightly tied to the world and the feeling the set was trying to create. Some of the mechanics played up the Egyptian influence while the others played up the Bolas influence. How (and maybe when) we returned would impact which mechanical components we'd want to use.

The biggest compliments about this set were about the look of the world. Players had been asking for an Egyptian set for many years and this set delivered the visuals of that promise well. The biggest issues as explained above was more about the tone of the world. A return would need to address that. (More on those issues in a second.)

The block ended by blowing up Amonkhet as we knew it. That complicates a return. There was talk though of a world beyond the walls of Naktamun (where the Amonkhet block story took place), so maybe there's a different part of Amonkhet to see.

Hour of Devastation pretty emphatically ended the Amonkhet block story. There might be some survivors though (Hazoret, for instance, didn't die on camera), so maybe there's some additional story to be told. Also, Samut is a Planeswalker from Amonkhet, so maybe there's a story about her return.

On the plus side, players generally liked the world and it has a lot of mechanical and creative elements that could be used for a return. On the minus side, it kind of got blown up, making a return trickier than many other worlds.

The downside of being the home to so many sets is that it's hard to have a mechanical identity when you've done such a plethora of different things. Before Dominaria, I would have given this a Weak, but Dominaria did a lot to reframe the world as the plane of history. Assuming future returns play into that theme, I think we can build Dominaria into having a strong mechanical identity.

Much like mechanical identity, creative identity is hard when you've had so many different takes on the world. Dominaria did a lot of work though helping to define a creative identity for the world and I also believe if we build on that in future returns we can get this category up to Strong.

Fiora is closely associated with Conspiracy sets, so it's thought of as a world tied to drafting and multiplayer play. This makes moving it to a Standard-legal set trickier because it would have to carve out a new mechanical identity.

Our worldbuilding for supplemental sets is not as exhaustive as our Standard-legal sets, so Fiora used up most of what had been built for it. There are clearly new areas that could be extrapolated, but not a lot was previously built in.

Fiora is a cool world, but it has a lot of challenges, especially mechanically, for being a Standard-legal setting. I believe the greatest chance of it happening hinges upon it playing an important role in the storyline.

Innistrad is a top-down world that captures the feel of the horror genre. It makes use of the graveyard, monster tribal, and lots of individual cards that play into various tropes. It also is the world that introduced transforming double-faced cards to the game. Innistrad has as tight a mechanical identity as they come.

Innistrad has two whole different things it can explore. One, its worldbuilding has been very rich and there are many areas that have been hinted at but not yet fully explored. Two, the horror genre has many different facets that we could tap into when expanding the world. All in all, Innistrad has plenty of space to play in on returns.

The players love the world. It has a very tight mechanical and creative identity which are tightly interwoven. It has lots of room to explore and storylines to pick up. This is another world that seems ripe for a return.

We do market research multiple times for each set. The world of Ixalan is a world that started higher initially and went down over time. My guess is that players liked the concept of the world and were unhappy with some of its execution, particularly in gameplay.

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