With the official release of the next Magic the Gathering set, Return to Ravnica, in about two weeks, most players have already sorted themselves into one of the five different Guilds featured in this first set of the block – Azorius (blue / white), Izzet (blue / red), Rakdos (black / red), Golgari (black / red), and Selesnay (green / white).

We want to talk about some key new Guild-aligned cards which players will be seeing a lot of over the next few months – the Gold-colored Guildmages. These may not be the big splashy rares or mythics in the set but these certainly could be considered the foot soldiers on Ravnica.

Each of these uncommon-rarity 2/2 creatures costs two colored mana, one of each of its guild's colors. Each of these guildmages also has two activated abilities that cost both colors of its guild which are in line with the flavor of each of the five guilds. Do not underestimate the power and potential of each of these in your game.

The guildmages, which are all available for preorder now are

To ensure your Guild strategy is executed flawlessly, consider investing in the rare dual lands, the uncommon artifact keyrunes, or the common Guildgates to fix your mana. The easiest and most efficient way to jump start your adventures into Return to Ravnica is preordering a Common / Uncommon set, so you won’t be scrambling for a last minute trade to complete your new deck. For EDH / Commander players, considering taking your deck to the next level with some Chinese language foils.