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MTG’s special Avatar expansion won’t hit the general market until later this week, however following prerelease weekends over the last few days, one cheap green card has already exploded in price.

Throughout the spoiler season, Badgermole Cub attracted significant interest. This two-power, two-toughness that costs G and 1 mana, the card features Earthbending 1 (arguably the best within the elemental mechanics available). The major perk here lies in its second ability: If you tap a creature for mana, you gain one extra green mana.

At its cheapest, the card was available for $26.98. Post-prerelease, however, the going rate jumped to nearly $50 including listings priced at sixty dollars. Why are we seeing Vivi prices for this little creature? Mainly due to the incredible mana acceleration it enables.

Upon entering the board, the cub transforms a land so it becomes a creature with earthbend. Alongside its mana-doubling effect, as long as it is not removed, those lands generates double mana — in addition to other creatures in your control which tap for mana.

A clear choice for maximum effect would be this one-mana elf, a low-cost creature that taps to generate one green mana. But there are plenty of other mana generation creatures available. This particular druid is a higher-cost choice that’s a 1/3 for two mana instead.

Deploying terrain, mana-producing creatures, plus the cub, you can easily get an enormous pricey creature on the battlefield within a few turns. The situation escalates exponentially with continued aggression from that point.

If you dip into an additional hue using this method, cards like these mana-fixing creatures work perfectly that generate any mana color. Additionally, a useful enchantment creature lets you play an additional land each turn as well as transforms all of your lands into every basic land type. You can also consider something like this six-mana enchantment, which for six mana gives each permanent you control the ability to tap and generate a mana of any type — even any creature in play.

The cub could be too strong in terms of ramping up your mana generation, yet what closes out the game in such a strategy? An often-seen solution has been this legendary creature. Its stats are both equal to your land count, plus it turns all of your nontoken creatures into Forests in addition to their other types. This means, all your creatures you control may generate two green mana if used for mana.

This additional option provides a high-cost, powerful body that thrives with lots of lands (as with the previous card, P/T match the number of lands you control).

This Planeswalker is an excellent fit in this deck. Her static effect causes all Forests tap for one more G. (If you have the cub, that means those lands produce triple green.) One loyalty ability functions like a form of land animation, placing counters to a noncreature land, a useful effect but does not overlap with earthbend. Her ultimate, however, grants all of your lands indestructible and lets you draw out every Forest left in your deck. If you can actually activate this power, it almost certainly you win.

This card is nearly mandatory for all green-based Avatar strategies focusing on the earthbend mechanic. If you dip into red-green, you can use Bumi Unleashed. This card features earthbend 4, plus if damage is dealt in combat, land creatures are ready again and can attack again. While that version is a fan favorite Commander, this small creature is definitely going to remain among the top, possibly the desired card from this expansion.