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MTG’s collaboration with Avatar isn't set to hit the general market in the coming days, but due to prerelease weekends recently, a low-cost green spell saw a sharp rise in price.

From the initial reveals, Badgermole Cub drew a lot of attention. A 2/2 requiring a single green and one generic mana, Badgermole Cub features the Earthbend 1 ability (possibly the best of the elemental mechanics available). Its key advantage in its design lies in an additional effect: Each time mana is generated by tapping a creature, add an additional green mana.

Initially, the card sold below $30. Following the early events, though, its value has shot up above $45 including listings for sale at $60.00. What explains Vivi prices for this cute lil guy? Primarily due to the incredible mana acceleration it enables.

Upon entering the battlefield, this creature turns a land so it becomes a creature granting it earthbend. Combined with its other power, as long as it stays in play, those lands yields two mana instead of one — along with other creatures on your side that generate mana.

The obvious go-to to combine with would be Llanowar Elves, a cheap 1/1 that produces a green resource. However numerous other mana generation creatures in the game. This particular druid is a higher-cost choice a 1/3 creature for two mana as an alternative.

Deploying terrain, mana-producing creatures, alongside this card, it's simple to summon a massive high-cost creature on the board early in the game. The situation escalates rapidly by maintaining dominance from that point.

By incorporating a secondary color using this method, options such as Fuel Tank Feaster, Ilysian Caryatid, and Paradise Druid are excellent picks that can make any color of mana. Additionally, this powerful dryad allows you to put one extra land each turn AND transforms your entire land base so they count as all basics. Another possibility is such as the enchantment A Realm Reborn, costing six mana grants every card you own the capacity to tap and generate one mana of any color — including any creature in play.

Badgermole Cub may be OP regarding accelerating your resources, but what closes out the game for a deck like this? An often-seen solution has been Ashaya, Soul of the Wild. Its stats are set by how many lands you have, and it makes your non-token creatures to be Forests as well as other subtypes. This means, every single creature in play may tap for two G by tapping.

Another creature provides a high-cost, powerful body which gains from many terrain cards (as with the previous card, its stats are equal to your land total).

Nissa, Who Shakes the World works perfectly as a staple. Her passive ability causes all Forests tap for one more G. (If you have the cub, so those lands produce triple green.) One loyalty ability acts as a proto-earthbend, putting +1/+1 counters on a land, which is great but it isn't redundant with the cub's ability. Her -8 ability, on the other hand, renders each land you control unbreakable and allows you to search for your remaining Forests in your deck. If you can actually activate that ability, this typically means you win.

This card is pretty much essential for all green-based Avatar strategies built around earthbend. When branching into red and green, there’s Bumi Unleashed. He has earthbend 4, plus if it hits a player to a player, each animated land untap and may attack once more. While that version has emerged as a popular Commander choice, the cub is set to be one of the most, maybe the popular pick from this expansion.