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Magic: The Gathering’s Avatar crossover set will not become widely available in the coming days, yet due to prerelease weekends recently, an affordable green creature has already exploded in market worth.

Even during previews, this small creature attracted significant interest. A creature with stats 2/2 priced at one green and one colorless mana, it features level 1 earthbending (possibly the best within the elemental mechanics available). The real boon here lies in an additional effect: Whenever a creature is tapped to produce mana, it provides bonus green mana.

Initially, Badgermole Cub was available for $26.98. Post-prerelease, yet, its value has shot up above $45 including listings as high as $60. What explains premium pricing on this adorable card? Mostly due to the rapid resource generation it provides.

As it hits the battlefield, Badgermole Cub transforms a land into a creature granting it earthbend. And with that second ability, while it stays in play, those lands yields two mana instead of one — plus mana-producing creatures on your side which tap for mana.

A clear choice for maximum effect is Llanowar Elves, a cheap 1/1 that produces a green resource. However numerous alternative mana dorks out there. Druid of the Cowl is a higher-cost choice that’s a 1/3 for two mana as an alternative.

Deploying terrain, mana-producing creatures, alongside this card, it's simple to summon a massive and very expensive monster on the board early in the game. The situation escalates out of control if you keep the pressure on from that point.

If you dip into an additional hue with this approach, options such as these mana-fixing creatures work perfectly that can make any mana color. And something like this powerful dryad enables playing one extra land per turn plus turns your entire land base into every basic land type. You can also consider such as the enchantment A Realm Reborn, costing six mana grants all of your permanents the power to tap and generate any color mana — even each creature in play.

This card could be too strong in terms of boosting mana production, however what closes out the game in such a strategy? One obvious and popular answer already is Ashaya, Soul of the Wild. Its power and toughness are both equal to the number of lands you control, and it makes all of your nontoken creatures into Forests as well as their other types. This means, each creature in play is able to tap for two G by tapping.

Another creature is a costly, large threat that thrives with many terrain cards (similar to Ashaya, its power and toughness match how many lands you have).

This Planeswalker is an excellent fit in this deck. Her passive ability causes all Forests produce extra green. (If you have the cub, this results in each one yield three G.) One loyalty ability is essentially a form of land animation, putting +1/+1 counters to a noncreature land, handy but it isn't redundant with earthbend. Her -8 ability, on the other hand, makes each land you control immune to destruction and allows you to put onto the battlefield your remaining Forests in the deck. Should you manage to use the ultimate, it’s pretty much game over.

This card is nearly mandatory for all decks using green and Avatar focusing on the earthbend mechanic. When branching into red-green, there’s this legendary card. He has level 4 earthbending, and if damage is dealt to a player, all land creatures are ready again and can attack again. Although this card has emerged as a beloved leader, the cute little Badgermole Cub is definitely going to remain among the top, possibly the sought-after card in the Avatar set.