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MTG’s collaboration with Avatar won’t hit the general market in the coming days, yet following prerelease weekends this past weekend, one cheap green card experienced a surge in value.

From the initial reveals, the earthbending cub drew a lot of attention. A creature with stats 2/2 priced at one green and one colorless mana, Badgermole Cub features level 1 earthbending (arguably the strongest within the elemental mechanics available). The real boon in its design is an additional effect: Whenever you tap a creature for mana, add an additional green mana.

Initially, this card was available below $30. Following the early events, however, the going rate escalated above $45 and one seller offering for sale at $60.00. What explains premium pricing on this adorable card? Mostly due to the rapid resource generation it enables.

When it arrives play, Badgermole Cub turns a terrain card into a creature that has earthbending. Combined with its other power, as long as it stays in play, every earthbent land yields two mana instead of one — plus other creatures in your control which tap for mana.

The obvious go-to for maximum effect includes this one-mana elf, an inexpensive 1/1 which can be tapped for G mana. Yet many creatures that make mana available. Another option costs a bit more a 1/3 creature costing two mana in comparison.

Deploying terrain, dorks that generate resources, plus the cub, you may quickly play an enormous high-cost monster into play by round three or four. And things just keep spiraling rapidly if you keep the pressure on from there.

By incorporating an additional hue in this strategy, examples including these mana-fixing creatures work perfectly which produce any color of mana. Additionally, a useful enchantment creature allows you to put one extra land per turn AND transforms every land you control into every basic land type. Another possibility is such as the enchantment A Realm Reborn, at a six-mana investment provides all of your permanents the capacity to be tapped for any color mana — even any creature you have on the board.

The cub may be OP in terms of ramping up your mana generation, however how do you win with this archetype? One obvious and popular answer is Ashaya. Its stats match how many lands you have, and it changes your non-token creatures to be Forests as well as other subtypes. Essentially, all your creatures in play is able to tap for two G if used for mana.

Harmonious Grovestrider is another expensive, beefy creature that benefits from lots of lands (similar to Ashaya, P/T match the number of lands you control).

This Planeswalker is an excellent fit as a go-to Planeswalker. Her static effect allows every Forest tap for one more G. (If you have the cub, this results in all earthbend forests yield three G.) Her main ability functions like a proto-earthbend, placing counters to a noncreature land, which is great but it isn't redundant with earthbend. Her -8 ability, however, makes your entire land base immune to destruction and allows you to draw out all the remaining forests from your library. Once you trigger that ability, it’s pretty much game over.

This card is pretty much essential for all decks using green and Avatar built around earthbend. When branching into red-green, you can use Bumi Unleashed. This card features earthbend 4, plus if damage is dealt to an opponent, land creatures are ready again and may attack once more. Although this card has emerged as a beloved leader, this small creature is set to be among the top, possibly the desired card from this expansion.