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MTG’s collaboration with Avatar isn't set to hit the general market in the coming days, yet due to prerelease weekends recently, one cheap green card has already exploded in price.

Even during previews, the earthbending cub garnered a lot of attention. A creature with stats 2/2 requiring one green and one colorless mana, Badgermole Cub has the Earthbend 1 ability (arguably the strongest among the set’s four “bending” mechanics). Its key advantage here is its second ability: Whenever you tap a creature for mana, you gain one extra green mana.

Initially, this card was available below $30. Post-prerelease, however, the going rate escalated to $49.66 with at least one listed as high as $60. Why are we seeing Vivi prices for this cute lil guy? Mainly due to the rapid resource generation it can produce.

Upon entering the battlefield, the cub transforms a terrain card to a creature land granting it earthbend. Alongside its mana-doubling effect, if it stays in play, every earthbent land generates double mana — plus other creatures on your side that generate mana.

A clear choice to combine with includes the classic Llanowar Elves, a cheap 1/1 that produces one green mana. Yet there are plenty of alternative mana dorks available. This particular druid costs a bit more a 1/3 creature costing two mana in comparison.

Deploying terrain, creatures that tap for mana, alongside this card, you can easily get a very big and very expensive monster on the board early in the game. Momentum builds exponentially if you keep the pressure on from that point.

If you dip into another color with this approach, examples including Fuel Tank Feaster, Ilysian Caryatid, and Paradise Druid are excellent picks that can make any color of mana. Another card, this powerful dryad enables playing another terrain per turn plus transforms your entire land base providing all land types. Another possibility is for example this six-mana enchantment, at a six-mana investment gives every card you own the capacity to tap and generate a mana of any type — which covers any creature in play.

This card might seem overpowered regarding boosting mana production, however what closes out the game in such a strategy? One obvious and popular answer already is this legendary creature. Power and toughness are set by your land count, and it makes your non-token creatures Forests in addition to their original types. Essentially, each creature you control may generate two green mana by tapping.

Another creature is another expensive, beefy creature which gains from a high land count (like Ashaya, its stats are based on the number of lands you control).

Nissa works perfectly as a go-to Planeswalker. One of her abilities allows every Forest tap for one more G. (With a Badgermole Cub, so each one generate three green mana.) One loyalty ability is essentially an early earthbend, putting +1/+1 counters to a noncreature land, a useful effect though it doesn't stack with the cub's ability. Her ultimate, on the other hand, renders each land you control unbreakable and allows you to draw out all the remaining forests in your deck. Should you manage to use that ability, it almost certainly the game ends.

Badgermole Cub is pretty much essential for any kind of green-based Avatar strategies that use earthbend. When branching into Gruul colors, consider Bumi Unleashed. It possesses earthbend 4, and if damage is dealt to an opponent, each animated land untap and can attack again. While that version has become a fan favorite Commander, this small creature is set to be among the top, possibly the desired card in the Avatar set.