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the popular card game’s Avatar crossover set won’t get a wider release in the coming days, however after early access events over the last few days, an affordable green creature experienced a surge in market worth.

Throughout the spoiler season, the earthbending cub garnered a lot of attention. A creature with stats 2/2 priced at one green and one colorless mana, Badgermole Cub includes level 1 earthbending (perhaps the most effective among the elemental mechanics available). The real boon here lies in an additional effect: Whenever a creature is tapped to produce mana, you gain one extra green mana.

Initially, the card was available below $30. Post-prerelease, yet, the market price escalated to $49.66 including listings priced at sixty dollars. What explains Vivi prices on this adorable card? Mainly thanks to the explosive mana ramping it provides.

Upon entering the board, the cub transforms one land to a creature land with earthbend. Combined with its other power, if it remains on the board, those lands generates double mana — plus any creatures on your side that generate mana.

An ideal partner to combine with is the classic Llanowar Elves, an inexpensive 1/1 that produces one green mana. Yet there are plenty of alternative mana dorks available. Druid of the Cowl costs a bit more with stats 1/3 for two mana as an alternative.

Deploying terrain, mana-producing creatures, plus the cub, you can easily get a massive pricey monster on the board early in the game. And things just keep spiraling rapidly by maintaining dominance from that point.

If you dip into a secondary color using this method, cards like these mana-fixing creatures work perfectly which produce any mana color. And something like a useful enchantment creature enables playing another terrain every round plus transforms every land you control so they count as all basics. It's also worth trying for example this six-mana enchantment, at a six-mana investment gives each permanent you control the power to tap and generate one mana of any color — even all creatures in play.

This card could be too strong in terms of boosting mana production, but what’s the endgame finisher with this archetype? A common and powerful choice already is Ashaya, Soul of the Wild. Its power and toughness are set by how many lands you have, and it changes your non-token creatures to be Forests as well as their original types. This means, each creature in play is able to generate two green mana if used for mana.

Harmonious Grovestrider is another expensive, beefy creature which gains from a high land count (like Ashaya, its power and toughness are equal to your land total).

This Planeswalker works perfectly in this deck. Her static effect makes Forest lands tap for one more G. (With a Badgermole Cub, so those lands yield three G.) Her plus ability is essentially an early earthbend, adding counters on a land, a useful effect but does not overlap with the cub's ability. Her -8 ability, on the other hand, renders your entire land base immune to destruction and lets you draw out your remaining Forests in the deck. Once you trigger that ability, it’s pretty much you win.

The cub is a must-have in any green-based Avatar strategies focusing on the earthbend mechanic. When branching into red and green, there’s Bumi Unleashed. He has earthbend 4, and when it hits a player to a player, land creatures untap for another attack. While that version is a fan favorite Commander, the cute little Badgermole Cub will surely stay among the top, possibly the sought-after card in the collaboration.