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MTG’s Avatar crossover set will not get a wider release in the coming days, however following prerelease weekends over the last few days, a low-cost green spell experienced a surge in price.

From the initial reveals, this small creature attracted significant interest. A creature with stats 2/2 requiring G and 1 mana, the card features Earthbending 1 (possibly the best of the elemental mechanics available). Its key advantage here is another power: If mana is generated by tapping a creature, add an additional green mana.

At its cheapest, the card was available at around $27. Post-prerelease, yet, the market price escalated to nearly $50 and one seller offering for sale at $60.00. Why are we seeing premium pricing for this cute lil guy? Mainly thanks to the rapid resource generation it can produce.

When it arrives play, Badgermole Cub converts a terrain card so it becomes a creature that has earthbending. And with that second ability, while it stays in play, those lands yields two mana instead of one — plus any creatures in your control that generate mana.

An ideal partner for maximum effect includes the classic Llanowar Elves, a low-cost creature which can be tapped for a green resource. Yet many other mana generation creatures in the game. This particular druid is a more expensive alternative that’s a 1/3 costing two mana instead.

Deploying terrain, dorks that generate resources, plus the cub, you can easily get a massive high-cost monster on the board within a few turns. And things just keep spiraling rapidly by maintaining dominance 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 generate any mana color. Another card, a useful enchantment creature allows you to put an additional land every round plus turns all of your lands providing all land types. You can also consider such as the enchantment A Realm Reborn, which for six mana gives all of your permanents the capacity to be tapped for a mana of any type — even any creature you have on the board.

Badgermole Cub may be OP in terms of boosting mana production, but what closes out the game with this archetype? One obvious and popular answer is Ashaya, Soul of the Wild. Power and toughness match the number of lands you control, plus it turns all of your nontoken creatures Forests in addition to other subtypes. Essentially, every single creature you control can produce double green when tapped.

Another creature provides a high-cost, powerful body that thrives with lots of lands (like Ashaya, its stats are equal to the number of lands you control).

Nissa, Who Shakes the World fits really well in this deck. Her passive ability allows all Forests tap for one more G. (If you have the cub, this results in those lands yield three G.) Her plus ability functions like a form of land animation, placing counters on a land, a useful effect though it doesn't stack with earthbend. Her -8 ability, on the other hand, renders all of your lands immune to destruction and lets you put onto the battlefield your remaining Forests from your library. Once you trigger this power, it almost certainly the game ends.

Badgermole Cub is a must-have for any kind of decks using green and Avatar focusing on the earthbend mechanic. By including Gruul colors, consider Bumi Unleashed. It possesses earthbend 4, and when he deals combat damage to an opponent, each animated land are ready again and can attack again. Even though Bumi has emerged as a popular Commander choice, this small creature is definitely going to remain one of, if not the most desired card in the Avatar set.