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Magic: The Gathering’s Avatar crossover set won’t hit the general market in the coming days, yet after early access events over the last few days, an affordable green creature saw a sharp rise in price.

Even during previews, Badgermole Cub attracted significant interest. A creature with stats 2/2 priced at one green and one colorless mana, Badgermole Cub features Earthbending 1 (perhaps the most effective of the elemental mechanics available). Its key advantage here comes from its second ability: Whenever mana is generated by tapping a creature, it provides bonus green mana.

At its cheapest, this card sold at around $27. After the pre-release weekend, yet, the going rate jumped to $49.66 including listings priced at sixty dollars. What explains Vivi prices for this little creature? Primarily due to the explosive mana ramping it can produce.

When it arrives the board, the cub converts a land to a creature land granting it earthbend. And with that second ability, if it remains on the board, those lands yields two mana instead of one — in addition to any creatures you have which tap for mana.

An ideal partner for synergy would be Llanowar Elves, a cheap 1/1 that produces a green resource. But there are plenty of creatures that make mana available. This particular druid is a more expensive alternative with stats 1/3 costing two mana in comparison.

Using land cards, creatures that tap for mana, and Badgermole Cub, you can easily get a massive high-cost monster on the board early in the game. And things just keep spiraling rapidly by maintaining dominance after that.

When adding another color in this strategy, options such as these mana-fixing creatures work perfectly which produce any color of mana. And something like this powerful dryad enables playing one extra land each turn as well as transforms all of your lands into every basic land type. Another possibility is for example the enchantment A Realm Reborn, costing six mana provides all of your permanents the ability to be tapped for a mana of any type — which covers each creature in play.

The cub may be OP in terms of ramping up your mana generation, yet what closes out the game with this archetype? A common and powerful choice already is this legendary creature. Its stats are both equal to your land count, and it changes each creature you own Forests in addition to their other types. Essentially, all your creatures on your board can tap for two G by tapping.

Another creature provides a high-cost, powerful body that thrives with many terrain cards (like Ashaya, P/T are equal to how many lands you have).

Nissa, Who Shakes the World fits really well in this deck. One of her abilities allows Forest lands produce extra green. (Combined with earthbend, this results in all earthbend forests produce triple green.) Her main ability acts as a form of land animation, putting +1/+1 counters to a noncreature land, a useful effect but it isn't redundant with the cub's ability. The minus ability, however, makes each land you control immune to destruction and allows you to search for all the remaining forests in your deck. Once you trigger the ultimate, it’s pretty much game over.

The cub is nearly mandatory in any green Avatar deck that use earthbend. When branching into Gruul colors, you can use this legendary card. It possesses earthbend 4, plus if he deals combat damage to a player, land creatures become untapped for another attack. Although this card has emerged as a fan favorite Commander, the cub is set to be among the top, possibly the popular pick in the Avatar set.