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Magic: The Gathering’s collaboration with Avatar isn't set to hit the general market until later this week, however after early access events over the last few days, an affordable green creature saw a sharp rise in market worth.

From the initial reveals, Badgermole Cub drew a lot of attention. A creature with stats 2/2 requiring one green and one colorless mana, the card includes level 1 earthbending (possibly the best among the elemental mechanics available). The real boon in its design lies in an additional effect: Whenever mana is generated by tapping a creature, it provides bonus green mana.

When first listed, this card was available below $30. After the pre-release weekend, however, the market price has shot up above $45 and one seller offering for sale at $60.00. What explains Vivi prices for this cute lil guy? Mainly because of the rapid resource generation it enables.

When it arrives the battlefield, the cub transforms a terrain card into a creature with earthbend. Combined with its other power, if it stays in play, each affected land yields two mana instead of one — in addition to other creatures you have which tap for mana.

An ideal partner for synergy would be this one-mana elf, a cheap 1/1 that produces a green resource. Yet numerous other mana generation creatures available. Druid of the Cowl costs a bit more with stats 1/3 costing two mana instead.

Using land cards, dorks that generate resources, plus the cub, you may quickly play a massive high-cost monster on the board by round three or four. Momentum builds exponentially by maintaining dominance from that point.

By incorporating an additional hue in this strategy, options such as Fuel Tank Feaster, Ilysian Caryatid, and Paradise Druid work perfectly which produce any mana color. Another card, this powerful dryad allows you to put an additional land per turn AND turns your entire land base providing all land types. It's also worth trying something like this six-mana enchantment, which for six mana provides every card you own the power to be tapped for any color mana — which covers any creature in play.

The cub might seem overpowered in terms of boosting mana production, but what’s the endgame finisher in such a strategy? One obvious and popular answer is Ashaya, Soul of the Wild. Its stats are set by the number of lands you control, plus it turns all of your nontoken creatures to be Forests as well as other subtypes. In other words, each creature you control may generate two green mana by tapping.

Harmonious Grovestrider provides a high-cost, powerful body that benefits from lots of lands (like Ashaya, its stats are equal to your land total).

This Planeswalker works perfectly as a staple. Her passive ability causes Forest lands produce extra green. (If you have the cub, this results in all earthbend forests produce triple green.) Her main ability is essentially a form of land animation, placing counters to a noncreature land, handy but does not overlap with earthbend. The minus ability, on the other hand, renders each land you control indestructible and allows you to put onto the battlefield your remaining Forests in the deck. If you can actually activate that ability, it’s pretty much you win.

The cub is nearly mandatory for all green-based Avatar strategies built around Earthbending. By including Gruul colors, consider Bumi. This card features earthbend 4, plus if damage is dealt in combat, each animated land become untapped for another attack. Although this card is a popular Commander choice, the cub is definitely going to remain among the top, possibly the sought-after card from this expansion.