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the popular card game’s Avatar crossover set will not hit the general market until later this week, however after pre-releases this past weekend, an affordable green creature experienced a surge in price.

From the initial reveals, this small creature attracted significant interest. A creature with stats 2/2 that costs a single green and one generic mana, the card has the Earthbend 1 ability (possibly the most effective within the elemental mechanics available). The major perk in its design is an additional effect: Whenever a creature is tapped to produce mana, add an additional green mana.

Initially, Badgermole Cub sold at around $27. Following the early events, however, the going rate has shot up to $49.66 with at least one listed priced at sixty dollars. The reason for such high costs on this adorable card? Mostly thanks to the rapid resource generation it can produce.

As it hits the battlefield, the cub transforms one land into a creature with earthbend. Alongside its mana-doubling effect, while it remains on the board, each affected land generates double mana — along with mana-producing creatures you have that generate mana.

A clear choice for maximum effect is this one-mana elf, an inexpensive 1/1 that produces a green resource. Yet numerous other mana generation creatures out there. Druid of the Cowl costs a bit more that’s a 1/3 costing two mana in comparison.

By playing lands, dorks that generate resources, alongside this card, you can easily get a massive high-cost creature on the board within a few turns. And things just keep spiraling exponentially by maintaining dominance from there.

By incorporating a secondary color using this method, examples including these mana-fixing creatures are all great options that can make any color of mana. Additionally, a useful enchantment creature allows you to put one extra land every round as well as makes all of your lands providing all land types. You can also consider such as the enchantment A Realm Reborn, at a six-mana investment gives every card you own the capacity to be tapped for a mana of any type — which covers each creature in play.

Badgermole Cub may be OP regarding accelerating your resources, however how do you win with this archetype? A common and powerful choice has been this legendary creature. Power and toughness are both equal to the number of lands you control, plus it turns all of your nontoken creatures to be Forests as well as their original types. This means, each creature on your board can tap for two G if used for mana.

Another creature is another expensive, beefy creature that thrives with a high land count (similar to Ashaya, its power and toughness are equal to your land total).

Nissa, Who Shakes the World fits really well as a go-to Planeswalker. One of her abilities makes all Forests produce extra green. (Combined with earthbend, so those lands produce triple green.) Her plus ability is essentially a proto-earthbend, placing counters to a noncreature land, a useful effect though it doesn't stack with earthbending. The minus ability, however, renders all of your lands indestructible enabling you to draw out all the remaining forests from your library. Once you trigger that ability, it almost certainly game over.

The cub is pretty much essential for any kind of decks using green and Avatar built around earthbend. By including red-green, you can use this legendary card. This card features earthbend 4, plus if damage is dealt to an opponent, each animated land become untapped and may attack once more. Although this card has become a fan favorite Commander, this small creature is set to be among the top, possibly the popular pick in the Avatar set.