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Magic: The Gathering’s Avatar crossover set will not hit the general market until later this week, however following prerelease weekends this past weekend, a low-cost green spell saw a sharp rise in price.

Throughout the spoiler season, this small creature garnered significant interest. This two-power, two-toughness priced at a single green and one generic mana, the card features the Earthbend 1 ability (possibly the strongest within the elemental mechanics available). Its key advantage with this card lies in another power: If mana is generated by tapping a creature, you gain one extra green mana.

At its cheapest, the card was available at around $27. Post-prerelease, however, 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? Primarily due to the rapid resource generation it can produce.

When it arrives the board, Badgermole Cub converts a land into a creature with earthbend. And with that second ability, if it is not removed, those lands yields two mana instead of one — in addition to other creatures on your side which tap for mana.

The obvious go-to for maximum effect includes this one-mana elf, an inexpensive 1/1 that produces one green mana. However there are plenty of creatures that make mana out there. This particular druid is a more expensive alternative that’s a 1/3 for two mana instead.

By playing lands, dorks that generate resources, and Badgermole Cub, you can easily get an enormous and very expensive monster on the board by round three or four. The situation escalates exponentially with continued aggression after that.

If you dip into an additional hue with this approach, examples including versatile mana producers are all great options which produce any mana color. Another card, Dryad of the Ilysian Grove enables playing another terrain every round plus makes every land you control providing all land types. You can also consider something like a card called A Realm Reborn, which for six mana grants every card you own the capacity to tap and generate a mana of any type — even all creatures you have on the board.

The cub could be too strong regarding boosting mana production, yet how do you win in such a strategy? One obvious and popular answer is Ashaya, Soul of the Wild. Its stats are set by how many lands you have, and it makes each creature you own Forests as well as other subtypes. This means, every single creature in play can generate two green mana when tapped.

Harmonious Grovestrider is a costly, large threat which gains from a high land count (as with the previous card, its power and toughness are based on the number of lands you control).

This Planeswalker is an excellent fit in this deck. Her static effect causes every Forest produce extra green. (Combined with earthbend, that means those lands yield three G.) One loyalty ability is essentially a form of land animation, adding counters to a noncreature land, which is great but it isn't redundant with the cub's ability. Her -8 ability, on the other hand, renders your entire land base unbreakable and lets you put onto the battlefield your remaining Forests from your library. Should you manage to use the ultimate, this typically means the game ends.

The cub is a must-have for any kind of green Avatar deck built around Earthbending. By including red-green, there’s Bumi Unleashed. It possesses earthbend 4, and when damage is dealt to a player, each animated land are ready again and can attack again. While that version has emerged as a beloved leader, the cub will surely stay one of, if not the most sought-after card in the Avatar set.