Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #635: Rabiah Scale, Part 2

Episode Date: May 10, 2019

This is part two of a two-part series exploring the Rabiah Scale, a scale talking about how likely we are to visit or revisit certain planes in a Standard-legal set.

I'm pulling my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for the drive to work. Okay, last time I started talking about the Rabia scale, and today I will continue. I got all the way through Phyrexia last time. Oh, so the Rabia scale is a scale created on my blog talking about how likely a particular world is to be for an upcoming standard set. What's the likeliness in a standard set we'd revisit or visit, in some cases, the world? So we start with Rabia, which the scale is named after. So a reminder for each one of these, I'm going to talk about their popularity, their mechanical identity, their creative identity, the room for expansion, and the story continuation. Those are the five factors that kind of determine the chances of us going back.

So we start with Rebaia. So popularity, I just liked well enough. This is pre-market research, so I don't have a lot of the exact data on this, but people generally liked it. I mean, it was Magic's first expansion ever, and I think the thoughts were there wasn't a lot to compare it to, and it was the first set to ever have a theme. It was the first sort of top-down set. So, once again, I think people were just very, very excited that there was more Magic.

The mechanical it's weak. I mean, it's a top-down set, so a lot of the cards were, I mean, by anything it was defined by the flavor of top-down. But there wasn't much mechanical identity to it. Creative identity. When I say weak, what I mean is, Richard Garfield, when he made it, was inspired by 1001 Arabian Nights. And pretty much this is just 1001 Arabian Nights.

There's not a lot of... It's not like nowadays when we do a top-down set, we have something as the inspiration for what we're doing, but then we put magic stamp on it. This doesn't have magic stamp on it.

This is just us doing... I mean, 1001 Rabian Nights is, you know, it's public domain. But nowadays we like to do things that are more specifically our own thing. And so the reason Rabia is a 10, a little shocker here, is because we like to do our own thing. And I think that if we wanted to do a, you know, a Thazibon and Remy Knight theme sort of thing, we'd make our own world that had its own definition to it and not just sort of a carbon copy of what existed.

Room for expansion, not a lot of room for expansion. You know, once again, it was really rich. I mean, most of what it was is Richard just experimenting and things he had never experimented on before.

There were, it didn't have a particularly strong identity. There are a few tiny themes that run through it, but not a lot. And then story, not really much. Pretty minimal. There's no characters we know from Rebiah. Rebiah might have showed up once or twice in the story of somebody who was sort of weaving it in. When Richard first made the set, by the way, it wasn't

even really... It wasn't even defined where it was necessarily. It was later decided, oh, it was its own plane in Rebiah, so you can call it Arabian Nights. And obviously a rating 10. The reason this is what the scale is named after is this is just not the way we make worlds anymore. We make

worlds in which it's a magic influence. It's a world influenced by some real world source, but it's magic. And it has a magic component to it. And it really feels like a magic set. And Arabian Nights was super early. Richard had to make the set really fast because of the popularity of limited edition, and so he just sort of based it on something that existed so he could get it out. And while in the moment at the time, that's fine, you know, since then we've raised the bar a little bit on our

creative elements of our worlds. So that is why Rebiah is a 10, and why the scale is of our worlds. So that is why Rabia is a 10 and why the scale is named after it. Okay, next. Wrath. So Wrath was popular. The Tempest block was a pretty popular block. I don't know.

I mean, the world... One of the things about Wrath, if you remember at the time, was a lot of early magic. We really just sort of stuck on Dominaria. Arabian Nights, obviously, it was Rebaia. And that was kind of after the fact. We said, oh, I guess it's not Dominaria, it's Rebaia.

Fallen Empires was on a growth hub. We'll get to that later today. And that was, at the time of Tempest, that was kind of it. We'd never, I mean, we'd only left Dominaria twice at that point. And one of the things with the Weatherlight Saga that Michael and I, when we made the Weatherlight Saga, we really wanted to leave the plane. The whole idea of having a multiverse was, there's all these planes. Why do we keep staying in the same place?

So we made a story about characters that we wanted to move across the multiverse. And so Wrath was our start of, let's go see other planes. Let's go tell the story on other planes. Mechanically, this is back in the day where it's like come up with two named mechanics. And so the mechanics for Tempest were Shadow and Buyback. And while we weaved Shadow into the story, Shadow is explained through the creative.

Buyback really isn't, although spell mechanics are hard to do that with. But there's not a really strong mechanical identity. I mean, if we could go back to Wrath, there's not a lot of things like, oh, we got to do A, B, or C. It's mechanical identity. I mean, if we, if we could go back to Wrath, um, there's not a lot of things like, oh, we got to do A, B, or C. It's, it's mechanical identity. It just comes from a time where that's not quite how we built sets. We didn't theme them mechanically like we would later do. Um, creatively, um, I think it was an interesting world creatively. I think it was, uh, it was the first time we did

any world building. Really, it was the first world where we had a team, like we had a world building team come and visually sort of build the team so we knew what it would look like. And that we had never done prior to that team. Wrath was the first where we brought in artists and we worked on the look and feel of the world. Now, we've gotten a lot better at it, you know what I'm saying? Tempest to me was really ahead of its time

and really did a lot of cool things that Magic hadn't done before, but since then in a lot of ways it's kind of like the Model T of world building, where it was very innovative in its day, and before we've never done that, but since then we've gotten a lot more nuanced in our world building. The other problem with Wrath from a creative standpoint is that when the Phyrexians invaded Dominaria during the end of the Weatherlight Saga, the way they did that is they overlaid Wrath with Dominaria.

So Wrath isn't his own plane anymore. So that makes it tricky to visit. As far as stuff to explore, room to explore more stuff, minimal. I mean, there's some themes there you could go back and visit. But there's not a lot of things. And some of the things like Slivers, we've just done so many times in other places that we really have explored it. It's not like, oh, well, we introduced Slivers in Wrath and never saw them again, so let's go do more Slivers. Nah,

Slivers were popular, so we did them in a lot of other places. And story, minimal. I mean, it tied into the Weatherlight Saga. That is, I mean, it was a big part of the Weatherlight Saga. It's not a big part of the modern day story. I mean, I was a big part of the Weatherlight Saga. It's not a big part of the modern day story. I mean, I think it's part of the current Dominaria story and the fact that Wrath is overlaid. There are elements that come up in Undominaria. So it has a little bit of story relevance, but minimal.

So I gave it a nine. The reason I gave it a 9. The reason I gave it a 9 is the only way I think we go back to Wrath involves us going back in time. Like if for some reason we had a reason like, you know, we decided that the creation of Wrath was important you know, we thought they'd make a cool set or something. I don't know.

The set as we know it, Wrath, the plane as we know it, is gone. So the only way to actually go to the plane is to go to the past. And I'm not sure how compelling there is a story in the past. So anyway, I put it at nine in that, you know, it's a cool world. We did some cool stuff with it. Flowstone was neat. And there was a lot of cosm it's a cool world. We did some cool stuff with it. Flowstone was neat. And there was a lot of cosmology built into the world. The core, the Vec and the Dahl and everything else up there. But it is a tricky world to go back to.

Okay, next. Ravnica. So, popularity. Very popular. I think from our ratings, it's the most popular world that we've visited. Dominaria and Innistrad both come close, but I think it currently

has, it's number one. But anyway, we've been there three times. It's been a big hit every time we've been there. Mechanically, very strong identity. It's the guild, it's the world of the guilds. It's a multicolor theme theme and a two-color multi-color theme. And it is so strong mechanically that, if anything,

one of my personal complaints about Ravnica is I think we're a little too tight in how we do the mechanics in that all three visits have been really similar to each other. That the designer in me would stretch things out a little bit. Creative identity. Strong. The guilds, again, very strong. There's a lot of characters there. There's a lot going on. It definitely is a very strong creative world. Room to explore. Yes, there's significant room to explore. You know, we've done a lot to flesh out the guilds and we've done a lot to flesh out the characters and to flesh out

the world and the history there's just a lot going on we've invested a lot of time and energy and the players are very invested in it so there's a lot of things we can do story major it's a major you know like right now we're about to see the culmination

of the Bola story and where does it take place? On Wrath. Not Wrath. On Ravnica. It takes place on Ravnica because Ravnica is once upon a time, Dominaria was the center of the multiverse it kind of shifted to Ravnica over time, I mean, Dominaria is making its comeback but, Ravnica over time. I mean, Dominaria is making its comeback, but... Anyway, Ravnica, I mean, there's... Other than Dominaria, I think more Planeswalkers come from Dominaria.

I think that, obviously, more Planeswalkers have visited Ravnica than anywhere else. So, of ones we know. But anyway, rating one. The only real big question right now is what Nicole Bolas is up to in War of the Spark. Provided that Ravnica is in a state to be revisited, I think the chance of revisiting is high. But there's that caveat of

we have to see what Nicole Bolas is up to. Did I say Nicole Bolas? Nicole Bolas, sorry. Nicole Bolas, what's Nicole Bolas up to? And what is Niv-Mizzet up to? Okay, next, Ragatha. So Ragatha we saw in Magic Origins. It is the plane that Chandra first sparked to.

The Carol Keep is there, which is where Chandra studied. We know Jaya was there and we know that it's a world of a lot of volcanic activity the one thing we really know about Raghatha is it's a very red world there's volcanoes and mountains

and it oozes red and two of our most famous red characters Chandra and Jaya were both there so let's walk through, so popularity two of our most famous Red characters, Chandra and Jaya. We're both there. So let's walk through. So popularity, I mean, people liked it, I guess,

in Magic Origins. I don't get a lot of requests to go to Ragatha. I get some, but not a lot. Not as much as other worlds. People were much more excited to go to Kaladesh, for example, and even Brynn than Ragatha. Those were the three worlds that we had never been to that we visited in Magic Origins. The mechanical identity is weak. Like I said, it showed up in Magic Origins. I'm not even sure what the mechanical identity was. Like, Kaladesh had an artifact identity. I'm not even sure what Ragatha's identity was, other than, like, red direct damage spells.

I'm not even sure what Ragatha's identity was, other than, like, red direct damage spells. Um, so it, it, it's not well-defined mechanically. Creatively, also not that defined. I mean, it does have the, um, the Kale Keep and Giant Chandra tied there, and I think, um, Gideon might have been there in one of the books, but anyway. It is definitely... There's not a lot of world-building, creative stuff there. Room to explore? There's some. I mean, like I said, we've definitely introduced a few elements, and we can explore those elements.

And story minor. Like I said, Chandra Jai and I think Gideon have all been there. Obviously for Chandra Jai, it's a big part of their history. So I mean, there is some tie to the modern story, but it is definitely not a major six. It really needs, it needs a mechanical identity and it needs a creative identity that can explain the other four colors. So, I mean, the reason I put it a six is people know it. It's tied to Chandra. Like, it's... It is something that people occasionally ask about. And my best guess, the way we get to Ragatha is we're looking for a world to do some particular thing.

And we go, oh, wait a minute. That could maybe be Ragatha. Like, that's how we get there, is we're trying to do something else. And the Ragatha is the means for us to... Like, we go, oh, we don't have the world that does that thing. But wait a minute. Maybe that's Ragatha. And we start weaving the Ragatha is the means for us to, like, we would go, oh, we don't have the world that does that thing, but wait a minute, maybe that's Ragatha, and we start weaving the Ragatha.

So that's how I think we get to Ragatha. Shandalar. So Shandalar, eh, light. Shandalar first showed up in the Microprose game, Microprose magic game. That was a game in which you wandered around a world and it kind of, you had adventures and then the combat system was you would play magic against people. And that, while the game itself

didn't end up being horribly popular, it had a, it had kind of a cult status. There was a small band of people that really, really enjoyed that game. So much so that we brought it back as a setting for some core sets. So, Chandelator shows up

occasionally on core sets. So, like, popularity, I put light, but not, it's not beloved. Creatively, it's been in core sets. It's pretty weak. You know, mechanically and creatively it's very weak. Mostly it's used as a place where we can set

high fantasy things so there's not a lot of mechanical identity not a lot of creative identity the one creative thing we have set up there is the humanoid slivers so there was a branch of slivers that looked a little differently from the wrath slivers the wrath slivers have that kind of

talon look to them in one of the corsets, we visited Chandelar and we met the slivers of Chandelar. And they had more of a metallic they had more of a humanoid shape to them. Now, those slivers didn't go over great. So one of the defining traits of the world being the slivers but not the one people like as much, doesn't particularly help. So the question is, room for expansion.

Well, one of the tricky things was we haven't defined much. So, I mean, there is some room for expansion. But, I mean, in some levels there's lots of room for expansion because we haven't defined much. But there's also not a lot of things we define that you want to see more of. So it's not in a great place there either. Stories? Ah, minimal. I mean, it's tied in some core sets. I'm not even sure if we've ever stated that a planeswalker went there. I assume some did. So I gave it a

rating of a 7. Its biggest problem is the lack of definition. Like, even Ragatha, while it's not well-defined for all five colors, at least has a strong red definition. Like, we know what the red carts would look like. Chandelar is kind of generic

because we wanted it to work for the core set, so... Like Ragatha, I think the way we get to Chandelar is we're trying to find something else and then go, hey, maybe that's Chandelar. But it has even less of an identity than Ragatha, so it definitely requires us to sort of work with some stuff to get there. Next, Tarkir. So there's two timelines of Tarkir,

because Sarkin changed the timeline by saving Ugin. So there's the Khans timeline and the Dragons timeline. The Khans timeline was very popular. The Dragons timeline I will call light. Maybe I'm being a little unfair. Put it this way. I think the the cons was between popular and very popular and the dragons was between popular and light

people definitely liked the clan version more than the dragon version we thought players liked dragons quite a bit we thought that having lots of dragons would make people happy instead they were like no the other thing was we had Wedge in the clan version,

but when we went to the alternate version, we changed, because it's just hard to do an entire block of Wedge. It's not lots of design space. So, anyway, the world is popular, but ironically, we changed it away from the more popular version. It's got a pretty strong mechanical identity. I mean, I think Tarkir is attached to Wedges. I think if we go back to Tarkir, even with the dragons,

you know, we definitely will... I mean, I do think that Wedges and Tarkir are very tightly wound together. Creatively pretty strong. I mean, the one thing that you'll notice is even when we change the timelines, while the clans didn't quite play out as they did in the earlier timeline, they still exist. There are people that know about them.

We definitely did some seeding for a return, so there's definitely story to be had. We were well aware when we went to Tarkir. We had started to realize that we went back to worlds and stopped doing the thing where we completely took away the essence of the world. Now you might say, but wait, you changed

away from the clans. If you go back and read some of the stories and stuff, we laid the groundwork for a return to Tarkir in a way that I think players will be happy with. Room for expansion, pretty significant. Like I said, we actually told the story and then left open another chapter of the story.

So there really is places to play around there. Story minor, it's Sorkin's home world. It is Narset's home world. Ugin spent a fair amount of time there. We know that a few other Planeswalkers visited there. But, you know, it is not a major player in the larger story, but, um, you know, it is, um, it's not a major player in, in the larger story, but a minor player. So rating, I gave it a four.

Uh, I'm pretty optimistic we'll go back to Tarkir someday. Um, players really, really did enjoy, especially Khan's Tarkir. Um, I think the return, we have to make sure that we can capture some of the essence of what made Khan so awesome. Um, but I, I do think that we can go back and do cool stuff. So I gave it a four. Theros. Okay, Theros was popular.

Theros is our top-down, the set influenced by Greek mythology. The Theros block, obviously. It has a strong mechanical identity. It's got a number of mechanics that players really like. It has an enchantment theme. Devotion was very popular. Creatively, very strong identity. The gods, there's a lot of cosmology we wove in.

So there's a lot of really interesting world choices there. Room to expand, significant. Like, for example, the enchantment theme. We haven't done a lot of sets with an enchantment theme. It really is a theme that we have a bunch of places to play around with. I think we left a lot of interesting creative choices and things we can play around with, which gets us to the story.

Major, major plot line. So, Elsbeth is one of the most popular planeswalkers we've ever made. Died. Was killed by Heliod. Spoilers. On Theros. But, Theros has an underworld.

So, while Elspeth is dead, there are worse worlds to be dead on than a world with an underworld. And last we saw on her planeswalker card was... We saw a little picture of her in the underworld. So there's a lot of pressure to go back to Theros, because we clearly... There is a storyline left open.

And Gideon is from... Gideon is from Gideon is from Theros. Ajani has visited Theros. Ashiok has visited Theros. Xenagos is from Theros and died. And he died on Nyx. Which is not a place you can go to the

underworld. So I'm not sure how much more Xenagos we're going to see. Anyway, I gave this a rating of 3. We left such a gaping plotline dangling that it's hard. And the world's really popular. There's a lot of mechanical strength to it. Like, everything about the world says we could do another cool world. And we left a pretty... I put this at a 3. Like, I don't know how we don't go back one day. I'm pretty confident at some point we'll go back.

Ogrotha. So this is the home of Homelands. It is where Sarah and Faraz set up shop. It's where Baron Sanger is from. A lot of minotaurs and things. So Ogrotha was the first kind of brand new world outside of Dominaria that we made. I mean, Rebaia was technically the first we visited, but really that was just 1001 Raby Knights.

There wasn't a lot of world building on our part. Homelands was the first world where there was some world building done. We made a world and there's a story and it actually takes place in another world, another plane. But the popularity of Homelands or of Ogrurtha is low. It's unpopular. Why? Because Homelands was not popular. Homelands, I've tried Homelands a lot. It is probably from a mechanical standpoint the weakest set we have ever made. And even creatively it doesn't do particularly well. Like what we do now sometimes is we go back and we say

of all these worlds, which worlds do you want to visit again? And Agurotha never does particularly well. Even in the poll I just did, Agurotha shows up, but it's down quite a ways. You know, where Lorwyn and Kamigawa are right at the top, Agurotha is like, I don't know, 19th or 20th or something. It's a ways down there. Mechanical identity, pretty weak. It didn't have a very strong mechanical identity. Creative identity, a little better, but still not great.

A lot of its creative identity is like things people like from Alpha. Oh, people like Sarah Angel. Sarah's here. People like Singer Vampire. Oh, Baron Singer's here. People like Hurling Minotaur. Oh, the Minotaur's here. It is... It has a

it's a lot of I mean it's very fan service-y at the time but it's internal cohesion is not quite as strong as

some other worlds we've had and room for expansion is minimal and story is minimal there's one or two threads like

Baron Sanger has a the Dwarven portal whatever they never explained where it went. But portals got shut down with amending. So there's not a lot of story stuff to go there. So I gave it a nine.

I'm skeptical we'll go back to Ogreotha. Especially with which the one place that Ogreotha could have been if we wanted to push it was maybe a horror world. And we did that with Indusrod. Meaning if we were going to go back and re-concept it, Indusrod might have been the time to do that. And we didn't. We made a brand new world. So I don't think there's a lot of chance of going back to Ogurtha. I'm a bit skeptical of an Ogurtha return. Okay, Vryn.

Light, and Vryn was in Magic Origins. It's the home plane of Jace. Other than the Jace's origin story, we've never been there. Magic Origins shows a little bit of it. Mechanically, we have no idea what it... Like, the Vryn... Their color combination...

I don't remember the color combination Vryn was. It was blue something. maybe blue-white. But I think it was, like, control-y, but it was vague. It was very vague what the mechanical definition was. And creatively, like, there's mage rings, and there's mage rings. The mage rings are the coolest part about Vryn. We don't know a lot more than that. the maid rings are the coolest part about Braid we don't know a lot more than that

we've seen glimmers from Jace but Jace does not know a lot about his past and so we saw it in the origin story of Jace and Jace has remembered a few details but there's a lot of unknown that we don't know about it

places to expand upon there's some in some level because it's kind of vague We don't know about it. Places to expand upon? There's some. On some level, because it's kind of vague, it leaves ourselves open to a lot of interpretation how we want to do it. Vryn has so little definition so far that we have a lot of ability to sort of control what it is. I mean, it has to involve the mage ring.

Jace has to be from there. But there's some flexibility in what we could do. Story, minor. I mean, Jace is one of the major characters. It's his hometown, home plane. I mean, there's a story to be told. Jace going back to his hometown that he forgets, his home plane. There's story there.

So, I mean, there is a minor connection. And I do believe that, like, I mean, it is a plane that people ask for of the origins planes. People most ask for Kaladesh, then they ask for Vryn, then they ask for Gotham, that order of the new planes. So the rating, I gave it a 6. It needs some, like, once again, it's another one where I think we'll come up with an idea for a world we want to do and go, oh, that idea and Vryn could come together. Um, Vryn is, is kind of, has a lot of, the, the, the complete mystery around it because of Jason's and his memory loss means that we have some flexibility on what we want to do with it.

So there's some chance we'll get there one day. I mean, I do think it's a known world with, you know, a name that people recognize. And there's a story to be told. You know, Jace going back to his home plane. There's a story there. So my guess is someday we get there. But I gave it a six just because I don't know the full definition of it. Next, Zendikar.

So Zendikar was both the original Zendikar block and Battle for Zendikar block. So we've been there in five sets. It is very popular, although people like it more without the Eldrazi than with the Eldrazi. The original Zendikar was one of the highest rated worlds we had. And when we're back, it still did decently. But a lot of people's notes is, I liked it better without the Eldrazi. So, the Gatewatch got rid of the Eldrazi. Well, got rid of two of them and one of them left.

So, the Eldrazi are gone now. But anyway, definitely a very popular plane. Mechanical identity, strong. It's tied to the lands. Landfall being probably the biggest mechanic connected with the world. But it has a very strong land identity. And that's a very unique thing. There's not other worlds that do that.

So Zendikar definitely has that going for it. And creatively, very strong. We spent a lot of time building the world. A lot of events have happened on the world. So it definitely is a world that there's a lot creatively going on. Room for growth. Significant. Not only mechanically is there a lot of room. Lands have a lot of space for us to play around with. But there's a lot of story space and creative space. There's plenty to play around with. And story, major storylines.

It's where the Gatewatch got together. It is where Nyssa is from. It is where Kiora is from. It is where Nahiri is from. And it's been visited by many, many planeswalkers. In fact, other than probably Ravnica and Dominaria, more planeswalkers have visited Zendikar than any other plane that we know of,

as far as, I mean, that we know visited it. So for the ratings, I gave it a two. I am pretty sure we're going back to Zendikar. Zendikar has done well every time we went there. Given the battle for Zendikar had a little bit of a hiccup in that the war with the Eldrazi was definitely... I mean, that's the thing people had issues with is they preferred their Zendikar without so much Eldrazi on it.

Got that note. But anyway, I think our chance of returning to Zendikar without so much Eldrazi on it. Got that note. But anyway, I think our chance of returning to Zendikar is pretty high. Like I said, there's major story stuff going on there. There is lots of mechanical identity stuff to play with. Lots of creative identity. It's just the players like it. I mean, it's got everything you want in a world that we should go back to.

And like I said, we have heard the note of some stuff we did last time we were there people didn't like. And, like I said, we have heard the note of some stuff we did last time we were there people didn't like, so no nerd. Okay, now your special bonus world. So this is a world I forgot to do in my original article. I think I figured

out after it was done, because the world's Kylim. That's the world for Battlebond. And so I just hadn't thought of it at the time because I think BattleBond had just come out and I just wasn't thinking

of Kylum. So anyway, I'm now going to talk about Kylum. This is extra bonus footage. Extra bonus content that you did not get in America. Okay, popularity. It was light. I mean, we don't have a miracle. Okay, popularity. It was light. I mean, we don't have a lot of data on this.

Kylum's big thing in Battlebond is there's a stadium there called I think it's called Thalor's Reach. And it is where people fight with magic. Usually in teams of two versus another team of two.

And Battlebond really focused on the stadium. There's very little creative content in that outside the stadium. And I think players enjoyed Battle Bond, and I think the stadium was quite popular. But it's hard to gauge the world as a whole, because the world isn't just that stadium. The whole set can't be that stadium. Mechanically, it actually has a strong identity.

It is tied to two-headed giants, tied to team play. Now, the problem with that is that is not a theme that lends itself well to standard legal play, because we don't do a lot of teammate-based stuff. Oath of the Gatewatch did some, and that's the most we've ever done. So it's not—while it has a strong mechanical identity, it's a hard mechanical identity

to really play up in a standard legal set. Uh, creatively, it's interesting. The, Thour's Reach, the, the, um, the arena has a very strong identity. The world itself, it's only that one building, and given, well, that building has a lot of identity to it. The overall world is a little lighter. What, what is the world? Like, okay, that's there, but what is the world? And that's kind of unknown. Um, room for expansion? Ah, it's one of those things where it has

very little, because the things that were there are hard to expand upon in standard legal sets, and a lot in the sense that we told you nothing, so who knows what the world is. So, it is definitely one of those worlds where the set, Battlebond did not really set it up to be, oh, I want to return because all these things I would see. Story-wise, pretty minimal. I mean, the only planeswalkers we know have ever been there were Rowan and Will,, the only planeswalkers we know have ever been there were, um, Rowan and Will,

which are the planeswalkers in the, in Battlebond, um, so it has a little tiny tie in that there are planeswalkers there, but, uh, not, you know, it's not really tied into the larger magic store in any okay so I gave this a rating of 8 the reason I gave it an 8 is a couple things one is the mechanical identity while strong does not

lend itself toward a standard stat like I can imagine us doing another battle bond and obviously I'm pretty sure that would be set on Kylum I can imagine us doing another Battle Bond, and obviously, I'm pretty sure that would be set on Kylum. I can imagine us doing a set where some supplemental set where the stadium setting made sense or something, and we also put that on Kylum. For a set that has to have the five basic land, you need a lot more than just a singular place.

Now, it's possible that we, that Kynelm has a lot of other stuff going on. And I mean, the reason I gave it an eight is I can imagine us doing something and saying, oh, well, it makes sense that this world would have, you know, that auditorium. But it requires a certain world, requires a certain tone. Oh, that auditorium. But it requires a certain world, requires a certain tone.

Oh, that's another thing. The set is a very light tone. In fact, I think the only sets that have a lighter tone than this set have been the unsets. It's pretty goofy. There's a lot, you know, it definitely is a very lighthearted tone. And while Magic has sets with lighter tones, it's light for a normal set. So, like, on every level,

its mechanical identity isn't quite what we do in Standard. Its kind of tonal, creative identity isn't quite what we do in Standard. It's not that well-defined. It's got a lot of strengths going against it. Now, will we ever see Kylem again? I believe we will. I mean, I don't know if we'll see it in a standard legal set

because I think it has a lot of challenges for a standard legal set I do think we'll see it A. I think there's a chance of Battle Bond 2 I think that we might make other supplemental sets where some or all or some of the set makes sense we now have this giant stadium for magic fighting so if we have other needs for that

we've sort of created it so I mean I do think the Kynelum is doing some things really well, and I think it's a component that maybe we'd use again, but in a standard legal set where we're fleshing out five colors and we're trying to get the sort of feel of a normal standard set, it is tricky. So that is why I gave it an 8. I don't believe... I believe the chance

of us going back in a standard legal set is not great. Not Rabaya, but it is not wonderful. Anyway, guys, that is all the planes I have. One of the things I plan to do is as we create new planes, because we want to keep

making new planes, I will add them into the Rabia scale. Um, for those that, uh, just plug my blog real quickly. Um, the, the Rabia scale and the storm scale and all my scales are one of the things I do on my blog. Um, there's many, uh, popular topics on my blog and all the scales are some of them. Um, so if you've never read my blog, it's, it's called blog a dog, but I think it's Tumblr slash Mark Rosewater is my, how you find it. Um, and you can see me, I, I answer questions all the time and I, um, I post various stuff

there. Um, if you, if you want to follow one social media thing, um, Twitter and Tumblr are the two places where I put the stuff there. If you want to follow one social media thing, Twitter and Tumblr are the two places where I put the most content. And Tumblr is where I answer the questions. Every once in a blue moon I answer a question on Twitter. But really Tumblr is where I answer the questions. So if you'd like to hear me answer all sorts of magic questions, I would check out my Tumblr.

Anyway, that is the Tobias scale. I did not, it's funny, when I, who knows, I never thought when I answered my first storm scale question that it would lead not just to the storm scale existing, but all these other scales. There are two other major scales that I've not talked about

yet. There's a Beeble scale that's about creature types, and there's the Venture scale that's about Planeswalkers. So maybe one of these days. Probably what'll happen is I'll write an article first, and then I'll do a podcast, but those are other scales at some point I will talk about. Anyway, the other thing I'm

hoping you enjoyed about the last podcast of this one is talking about the mini-worlds of Magic. One of the things I find very exciting is that not only have we populated our game with a lot of exciting creatures and characters, but that we have so many well-defined, cool places.

And I think that's a really neat part of our game. And so it was fun with the Bioscale to go back and look at not even all of them, but most of them, a lot of them. So I hope you guys enjoyed it. But I'm now parking my car so we all know what that means

this is the end of my drive to work so instead of talking magic it's time for me to make magic I'll see you guys next time bye bye