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the popular card game’s Avatar crossover set won’t get a wider release in the coming days, however following prerelease weekends recently, one cheap green card experienced a surge in price.

From the initial reveals, this small creature drew a lot of attention. A creature with stats 2/2 priced at a single green and one generic mana, the card includes Earthbending 1 (possibly the most effective of the elemental mechanics available). Its key advantage with this card comes from its second ability: Whenever a creature is tapped to produce mana, you gain one extra green mana.

When first listed, the card could be purchased for $26.98. Following the early events, though, the going rate escalated above $45 and one seller offering for sale at $60.00. Why are we seeing such high costs for this cute lil guy? Mainly thanks to the explosive mana ramping it provides.

When it arrives play, Badgermole Cub transforms a terrain card into a creature with earthbend. Combined with its other power, as long as it stays in play, each affected land generates double mana — in addition to mana-producing creatures in your control that produce resources.

The obvious go-to to combine with is the classic Llanowar Elves, a cheap 1/1 which can be tapped for one green mana. Yet many other mana generation creatures in the game. Another option is a more expensive alternative with stats 1/3 costing two mana in comparison.

By playing lands, creatures that tap for mana, plus the cub, it's simple to summon a very big and very expensive monster on the battlefield early in the game. And things just keep spiraling rapidly with continued aggression from there.

If you dip into an additional hue in this strategy, examples including Fuel Tank Feaster, Ilysian Caryatid, and Paradise Druid work perfectly that can make any color of mana. And something like a useful enchantment creature allows you to put another terrain per turn as well as transforms your entire land base providing all land types. It's also worth trying for example a card called A Realm Reborn, which for six mana provides every card you own the capacity to be tapped for one mana of any color — which covers each creature you have on the board.

Badgermole Cub may be OP in terms of boosting mana production, yet what closes out the game in such a strategy? One obvious and popular answer already is this legendary creature. Its stats match your land count, and it changes all of your nontoken creatures to be Forests in addition to other subtypes. Essentially, each creature you control is able to generate two green mana if used for mana.

Another creature is a costly, large threat that benefits from many terrain cards (similar to Ashaya, its stats are equal to your land total).

Nissa, Who Shakes the World fits really well in this deck. Her static effect makes all Forests produce extra green. (Combined with earthbend, so all earthbend forests generate three green mana.) Her main ability acts as a form of land animation, adding counters on terrain, which is great but it isn't redundant with earthbending. Her -8 ability, though, grants your entire land base unbreakable and lets you search for your remaining Forests from your library. Once you trigger this power, it’s pretty much the game ends.

Badgermole Cub is a must-have for all green-based Avatar strategies built around the earthbend mechanic. By including red-green, consider Bumi. He has earthbend 4, plus if it hits a player to a player, each animated land are ready again and can attack again. While that version is a popular Commander choice, the cute little Badgermole Cub is set to be among the top, possibly the desired card in the Avatar set.