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MTG’s collaboration with Avatar won’t become widely available until later this week, yet after pre-releases over the last few days, an affordable green creature saw a sharp rise in market worth.

Throughout the spoiler season, this small creature garnered widespread focus. This two-power, two-toughness priced at G and 1 mana, Badgermole Cub features the Earthbend 1 ability (perhaps the best of the elemental mechanics available). The major perk here lies in its second ability: Whenever you tap a creature for mana, you gain one extra green mana.

When first listed, this card could be purchased at around $27. After the pre-release weekend, though, its value escalated to nearly $50 and one seller offering priced at sixty dollars. What explains premium pricing for this little creature? Mainly due to the rapid resource generation it enables.

Upon entering the battlefield, Badgermole Cub transforms a terrain card to a creature land with earthbend. Combined with its other power, as long as it stays in play, each affected land yields two mana instead of one — plus mana-producing creatures you have that produce resources.

A clear choice for maximum effect is Llanowar Elves, an inexpensive 1/1 that taps to generate a green resource. Yet numerous creatures that make mana out there. Another option costs a bit more with stats 1/3 at a two-mana value instead.

Using land cards, dorks that generate resources, plus the cub, you may quickly play a massive and very expensive monster on the board by round three or four. The situation escalates rapidly if you keep the pressure on from there.

By incorporating a secondary color in this strategy, examples including these mana-fixing creatures work perfectly that can make any color of mana. And something like this powerful dryad enables playing an additional land per turn plus turns every land you control so they count as all basics. Another possibility is for example the enchantment A Realm Reborn, which for six mana provides every card you own the ability to produce a mana of any type — including all creatures in play.

The cub might seem overpowered regarding boosting mana production, but what closes out the game with this archetype? One obvious and popular answer is this legendary creature. Its power and toughness match how many lands you have, and it makes all of your nontoken creatures Forests as well as other subtypes. In other words, every single creature in play is able to generate two green mana by tapping.

Harmonious Grovestrider provides a high-cost, powerful body that thrives with lots of lands (like Ashaya, its power and toughness are equal to the number of lands you control).

Nissa fits really well in this deck. Her static effect makes Forest lands generate an additional green mana. (With a Badgermole Cub, so all earthbend forests produce triple green.) Her plus ability acts as a form of land animation, putting +1/+1 counters on terrain, which is great but does not overlap with earthbend. The minus ability, on the other hand, renders each land you control immune to destruction and allows you to put onto the battlefield every Forest left in the deck. Once you trigger the ultimate, it almost certainly you win.

This card is pretty much essential for all green Avatar deck built around Earthbending. When branching into Gruul colors, you can use this legendary card. He has earthbend 4, and if it hits a player to a player, each animated land untap and may attack once more. Although this card is a beloved leader, the cub is set to be one of, if not the most popular pick in the Avatar set.