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Magic: The Gathering’s Avatar crossover set will not hit the general market in the coming days, however following prerelease weekends over the last few days, one cheap green card saw a sharp rise in price.

Even during previews, this small creature drew widespread focus. A creature with stats 2/2 priced at a single green and one generic mana, it has Earthbending 1 (possibly the strongest of the elemental mechanics available). The real boon here lies in its second ability: Each time mana is generated by tapping a creature, you gain one extra green mana.

At its cheapest, the card could be purchased for $26.98. Post-prerelease, yet, the market price jumped to $49.66 and one seller offering priced at sixty dollars. Why are we seeing premium pricing for this little creature? Mostly because of the incredible mana acceleration it can produce.

When it arrives the board, the cub converts a terrain card into a creature with earthbend. And with that second ability, as long as it is not removed, every earthbent land generates double mana — plus any creatures you have which tap for mana.

A clear choice for maximum effect is this one-mana elf, an inexpensive 1/1 which can be tapped for G mana. Yet there are plenty of creatures that make mana in the game. This particular druid costs a bit more that’s a 1/3 at a two-mana value as an alternative.

Deploying terrain, mana-producing creatures, and Badgermole Cub, you can easily get an enormous and very expensive threat on the board within a few turns. Momentum builds exponentially if you keep the pressure on from that point.

By incorporating an additional hue in this strategy, options such as these mana-fixing creatures are all great options which produce any mana color. And something like Dryad of the Ilysian Grove allows you to put another terrain each turn as well as turns every land you control providing all land types. You can also consider something like the enchantment A Realm Reborn, which for six mana grants each permanent you control the power to be tapped for any color mana — which covers all creatures under your control.

Badgermole Cub may be OP in terms of ramping up your mana generation, however what’s the endgame finisher for a deck like this? An often-seen solution is Ashaya. Power and toughness are set by how many lands you have, plus it turns all of your nontoken creatures into Forests as well as their original types. In other words, all your creatures you control can generate two green mana when tapped.

This additional option provides a high-cost, powerful body which gains from many terrain cards (like Ashaya, its power and toughness are based on the number of lands you control).

Nissa, Who Shakes the World works perfectly as a go-to Planeswalker. Her static effect allows every Forest generate an additional green mana. (If you have the cub, that means all earthbend forests produce triple green.) One loyalty ability functions like a proto-earthbend, adding counters on terrain, a useful effect but it isn't redundant with earthbend. The minus ability, however, renders all of your lands indestructible enabling you to put onto the battlefield your remaining Forests in the deck. Should you manage to use the ultimate, this typically means you win.

This card is pretty much essential for all decks using green and Avatar that use the earthbend mechanic. When branching into red and green, consider Bumi. It possesses earthbend 4, plus if it hits a player in combat, land creatures untap and may attack once more. Although this card is a popular Commander choice, this small creature is definitely going to remain among the top, possibly the desired card in the collaboration.