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the popular card game’s special Avatar expansion will not hit the general market until later this week, but due to pre-releases over the last few days, an affordable green creature has already exploded in market worth.

Even during previews, the earthbending cub attracted a lot of attention. A 2/2 that costs a single green and one generic mana, the card includes level 1 earthbending (perhaps the best of the set’s four “bending” mechanics). The real boon in its design comes from its second ability: Each time a creature is tapped to produce mana, it provides bonus green mana.

When first listed, Badgermole Cub could be purchased below $30. After the pre-release weekend, yet, its value escalated to $49.66 including listings as high as $60. The reason for premium pricing for this cute lil guy? Mainly thanks to the rapid resource generation it can produce.

As it hits the board, Badgermole Cub transforms a land to a creature land with earthbend. And with that second ability, if it is not removed, those lands yields two mana instead of one — in addition to mana-producing creatures in your control which tap for mana.

A clear choice to combine with would be Llanowar Elves, a cheap 1/1 that taps to generate a green resource. However many other mana generation creatures available. This particular druid is a higher-cost choice a 1/3 creature at a two-mana value instead.

By playing lands, dorks that generate resources, and Badgermole Cub, you can easily get a very big and very expensive threat on the board within a few turns. Momentum builds out of control by maintaining dominance from that point.

By incorporating a secondary color in this strategy, cards like these mana-fixing creatures are excellent picks that generate all five colors. Additionally, this powerful dryad allows you to put one extra land each turn as well as transforms all of your lands so they count as all basics. Another possibility is something like a card called A Realm Reborn, at a six-mana investment gives all of your permanents the capacity to tap and generate a mana of any type — including each creature you have on the board.

Badgermole Cub might seem overpowered when it comes to boosting mana production, yet what’s the endgame finisher for a deck like this? One obvious and popular answer already is Ashaya. Its stats are set by how many lands you have, and it changes each creature you own into Forests along with other subtypes. In other words, all your creatures on your board may produce double green by tapping.

Another creature provides a high-cost, powerful body which gains from many terrain cards (similar to Ashaya, P/T are equal to your land total).

This Planeswalker works perfectly in this deck. Her passive ability allows Forest lands produce extra green. (If you have the cub, so each one produce triple green.) Her main ability is essentially a proto-earthbend, placing counters on terrain, a useful effect but does not overlap with the cub's ability. The minus ability, however, renders all of your lands unbreakable enabling you to search for every Forest left in the deck. If you can actually activate the ultimate, it almost certainly you win.

The cub is nearly mandatory for all decks using green and Avatar that use the earthbend mechanic. If you dip into red and green, you can use Bumi Unleashed. It possesses level 4 earthbending, plus if it hits a player to a player, all land creatures untap and may attack once more. While that version has emerged as a popular Commander choice, the cub will surely stay among the top, possibly the desired card in the collaboration.