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MTG’s special Avatar expansion won’t get a wider release until later this week, yet following early access events this past weekend, a low-cost green spell saw a sharp rise in market worth.

Even during previews, Badgermole Cub drew significant interest. A creature with stats 2/2 requiring a single green and one generic mana, it has level 1 earthbending (perhaps the strongest among the four bending abilities in the set). The major perk in its design lies in an additional effect: Whenever a creature is tapped to produce mana, add an additional green mana.

Initially, this card sold below $30. Post-prerelease, yet, its value escalated above $45 including listings as high as $60. The reason for premium pricing for this cute lil guy? Mostly due to the incredible mana acceleration it enables.

When it arrives the battlefield, the cub turns a land into a creature granting it earthbend. Combined with its other power, while it remains on the board, every earthbent land produces twice the mana — in addition to other creatures in your control that generate mana.

An ideal partner for maximum effect includes the classic Llanowar Elves, a low-cost creature that produces one green mana. However numerous other mana generation creatures out there. This particular druid costs a bit more with stats 1/3 for two mana as an alternative.

Using land cards, mana-producing creatures, and Badgermole Cub, you may quickly play a massive and very expensive threat on the battlefield within a few turns. The situation escalates rapidly with continued aggression from that point.

By incorporating an additional hue using this method, cards like versatile mana producers work perfectly that generate any color of mana. Additionally, this powerful dryad enables playing another terrain each turn as well as transforms all of your lands into every basic land type. Another possibility is something like the enchantment A Realm Reborn, which for six mana gives every card you own the power to be tapped for any color mana — including each creature in play.

Badgermole Cub may be OP in terms of boosting mana production, but how do you win with this archetype? One obvious and popular answer already is Ashaya, Soul of the Wild. Power and toughness are set by your land count, plus it turns all of your nontoken creatures to be Forests in addition to their original types. In other words, each creature in play may tap for two G by tapping.

Harmonious Grovestrider is another expensive, beefy creature that benefits from many terrain cards (like Ashaya, P/T match the number of lands you control).

This Planeswalker is an excellent fit as a go-to Planeswalker. One of her abilities causes every Forest tap for one more G. (With a Badgermole Cub, that means those lands generate three green mana.) Her main ability functions like an early earthbend, adding counters on terrain, a useful effect but it isn't redundant with earthbending. Her ultimate, on the other hand, renders all of your lands unbreakable and allows you to search for your remaining Forests in the deck. If you can actually activate this power, it’s pretty much you win.

This card is pretty much essential in any decks using green and Avatar that use earthbend. When branching into red-green, there’s Bumi. This card features earthbend 4, plus if it hits a player in combat, each animated land untap and can attack again. Even though Bumi has emerged as a fan favorite Commander, the cute little Badgermole Cub is definitely going to remain one of, if not the most popular pick from this expansion.