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Magic: The Gathering’s Avatar crossover set won’t hit the general market until later this week, however due to prerelease weekends recently, a low-cost green spell experienced a surge in value.

Throughout the spoiler season, this small creature garnered significant interest. A creature with stats 2/2 that costs a single green and one generic mana, Badgermole Cub has level 1 earthbending (perhaps the best within the set’s four “bending” mechanics). The real boon with this card is an additional effect: Whenever mana is generated by tapping a creature, add an additional green mana.

At its cheapest, the card was available for $26.98. Post-prerelease, yet, the market price jumped to nearly $50 with at least one listed for sale at $60.00. The reason for such high costs for this cute lil guy? Mainly because of the rapid resource generation it provides.

As it hits the board, the cub turns a land so it becomes a creature with earthbend. Combined with its other power, if it remains on the board, each affected land yields two mana instead of one — along with mana-producing creatures in your control which tap for mana.

The obvious go-to to combine with is Llanowar Elves, a cheap 1/1 that taps to generate a green resource. Yet numerous creatures that make mana in the game. This particular druid is a more expensive alternative that’s a 1/3 at a two-mana value instead.

Deploying terrain, mana-producing creatures, and Badgermole Cub, it's simple to summon an enormous high-cost monster on the battlefield by round three or four. Momentum builds rapidly with continued aggression after that.

By incorporating an additional hue with this approach, options such as these mana-fixing creatures work perfectly which produce any color of mana. Another card, this powerful dryad enables playing another terrain per turn plus turns your entire land base so they count as all basics. Another possibility is for example the enchantment A Realm Reborn, at a six-mana investment grants every card you own the power to tap and generate a mana of any type — even any creature you have on the board.

The cub could be too strong in terms of accelerating your resources, however what’s the endgame finisher for a deck like this? An often-seen solution has been this legendary creature. Its stats are both equal to the number of lands you control, and it changes all of your nontoken creatures Forests as well as their other types. This means, every single creature on your board may tap for two G when tapped.

Another creature is a costly, large threat that benefits from lots of lands (like Ashaya, P/T match your land total).

This Planeswalker works perfectly in this deck. Her passive ability allows every Forest generate an additional green mana. (With a Badgermole Cub, that means all earthbend forests generate three green mana.) Her plus ability functions like a proto-earthbend, putting +1/+1 counters on terrain, which is great but it isn't redundant with earthbend. Her ultimate, though, renders each land you control unbreakable enabling you to search for all the remaining forests in the deck. Should you manage to use this power, it’s pretty much game over.

This card is pretty much essential in any green Avatar deck built around Earthbending. When branching into Gruul colors, you can use this legendary card. It possesses level 4 earthbending, and when damage is dealt to a player, all land creatures become untapped for another attack. Even though Bumi has emerged as a fan favorite Commander, the cub is definitely going to remain among the top, possibly the popular pick in the Avatar set.