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Magic: The Gathering’s collaboration with Avatar won’t get a wider release in the coming days, yet following prerelease weekends this past weekend, one cheap green card experienced a surge in price.

Throughout the spoiler season, the earthbending cub garnered widespread focus. A creature with stats 2/2 that costs a single green and one generic mana, Badgermole Cub features the Earthbend 1 ability (perhaps the best of the set’s four “bending” mechanics). The major perk here lies in its second ability: Whenever mana is generated by tapping a creature, you gain one extra green mana.

At its cheapest, Badgermole Cub sold for $26.98. Post-prerelease, yet, the market price escalated to nearly $50 with at least one listed priced at sixty dollars. The reason for premium pricing for this little creature? Mainly because of the explosive mana ramping it can produce.

Upon entering the board, this creature converts one land into a creature granting it earthbend. Combined with its other power, as long as it remains on the board, every earthbent land yields two mana instead of one — along with other creatures on your side which tap for mana.

The obvious go-to to combine with includes this one-mana elf, a low-cost creature that produces one green mana. However many other mana generation creatures out there. Another option is a higher-cost choice that’s a 1/3 at a two-mana value as an alternative.

By playing lands, mana-producing creatures, alongside this card, you may quickly play a massive and very expensive creature on the battlefield early in the game. The situation escalates out of control if you keep the pressure on from there.

By incorporating another color in this strategy, options such as Fuel Tank Feaster, Ilysian Caryatid, and Paradise Druid work perfectly which produce any mana color. Another card, this powerful dryad lets you play one extra land every round AND makes your entire land base so they count as all basics. It's also worth trying such as a card called A Realm Reborn, at a six-mana investment grants all of your permanents the power to be tapped for any color mana — which covers all creatures in play.

Badgermole Cub may be OP in terms of accelerating your resources, yet how do you win for a deck like this? An often-seen solution has been Ashaya, Soul of the Wild. Its stats match your land count, and it changes your non-token creatures to be Forests as well as their other types. In other words, all your creatures in play is able to tap for two G when tapped.

Another creature is another expensive, beefy creature which gains from lots of lands (similar to Ashaya, its stats are equal to the number of lands you control).

Nissa, Who Shakes the World fits really well as a staple. Her static effect allows Forest lands generate an additional green mana. (Combined with earthbend, this results in each one produce triple green.) One loyalty ability is essentially an early earthbend, adding counters to a noncreature land, which is great though it doesn't stack with earthbend. Her ultimate, though, makes all of your lands indestructible and lets you draw out your remaining Forests in the deck. Once you trigger the ultimate, it’s pretty much you win.

Badgermole Cub is a must-have for any kind of decks using green and Avatar that use earthbend. By including red-green, there’s Bumi Unleashed. He has earthbend 4, and if he deals combat damage to a player, all land creatures are ready again and can attack again. While that version has become a fan favorite Commander, the cute little Badgermole Cub is definitely going to remain among the top, possibly the desired card in the collaboration.