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MTG’s special Avatar expansion won’t hit the general market until later this week, however following pre-releases recently, an affordable green creature experienced a surge in price.

Throughout the spoiler season, this small creature attracted significant interest. A 2/2 priced at a single green and one generic mana, Badgermole Cub features the Earthbend 1 ability (possibly the most effective within the elemental mechanics available). The major perk in its design lies in another power: Whenever you tap a creature for mana, it provides bonus green mana.

Initially, the card sold below $30. Following the early events, though, the going rate jumped to $49.66 and one seller offering priced at sixty dollars. The reason for Vivi prices on this adorable card? Mainly due to the incredible mana acceleration it can produce.

Upon entering the battlefield, this creature transforms one land so it becomes a creature that has earthbending. Combined with its other power, as long as it is not removed, every earthbent land yields two mana instead of one — along with any creatures on your side which tap for mana.

The obvious go-to to combine with is this one-mana elf, an inexpensive 1/1 that produces a green resource. But many alternative mana dorks in the game. Druid of the Cowl is a more expensive alternative with stats 1/3 costing two mana in comparison.

Deploying terrain, dorks that generate resources, alongside this card, you may quickly play a massive and very expensive threat on the board within a few turns. And things just keep spiraling out of control with continued aggression from that point.

If you dip into an additional hue in this strategy, examples including these mana-fixing creatures are all great options that generate any color of mana. And something like Dryad of the Ilysian Grove enables playing an additional land every round plus makes your entire land base into every basic land type. You can also consider for example the enchantment A Realm Reborn, costing six mana provides each permanent you control the ability to produce a mana of any type — even any creature under your control.

The cub might seem overpowered regarding boosting mana production, however how do you win for a deck like this? A common and powerful choice already is this legendary creature. Power and toughness match your land count, and it changes all of your nontoken creatures to be Forests along with their other types. Essentially, every single creature in play is able to generate two green mana by tapping.

This additional option provides a high-cost, powerful body that thrives with a high land count (like Ashaya, its stats are equal to the number of lands you control).

This Planeswalker works perfectly as a go-to Planeswalker. One of her abilities makes 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, adding counters on terrain, handy though it doesn't stack with the cub's ability. The minus ability, though, makes all of your lands unbreakable and allows you to draw out every Forest left from your library. If you can actually activate this power, it’s pretty much game over.

Badgermole Cub is pretty much essential for all green Avatar deck that use Earthbending. When branching into Gruul colors, there’s Bumi. This card features earthbend 4, and if it hits a player to a player, land creatures become untapped and can attack again. Although this card has become a fan favorite Commander, this small creature is set to be one of the most, maybe the desired card from this expansion.