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MTG’s Avatar crossover set will not become widely available in the coming days, but due to pre-releases recently, an affordable green creature has already exploded in price.

Even during previews, this small creature attracted a lot of attention. A 2/2 priced at G and 1 mana, the card has Earthbending 1 (perhaps the most effective of the set’s four “bending” mechanics). The real boon with this card is another power: If you tap a creature for mana, it provides bonus green mana.

When first listed, this card could be purchased at around $27. After the pre-release weekend, yet, the market price jumped to $49.66 and one seller offering priced at sixty dollars. Why are we seeing premium pricing for this little creature? Primarily because of the rapid resource generation it enables.

As it hits the board, Badgermole Cub transforms a land to a creature land that has earthbending. Combined with its other power, while it stays in play, those lands generates double mana — in addition to other creatures in your control which tap for mana.

The obvious go-to to combine with would be this one-mana elf, an inexpensive 1/1 that produces G mana. However there are plenty of alternative mana dorks in the game. Druid of the Cowl costs a bit more that’s a 1/3 for two mana as an alternative.

Using land cards, dorks that generate resources, alongside this card, you can easily get an enormous and very expensive monster into play early in the game. The situation escalates rapidly by maintaining dominance from that point.

By incorporating an additional hue using this method, examples including Fuel Tank Feaster, Ilysian Caryatid, and Paradise Druid work perfectly that generate any mana color. Additionally, a useful enchantment creature enables playing another terrain each turn plus transforms every land you control providing all land types. Another possibility is something like the enchantment A Realm Reborn, which for six mana provides each permanent you control the ability to be tapped for a mana of any type — which covers all creatures under your control.

Badgermole Cub may be OP regarding accelerating your resources, however how do you win in such a strategy? One obvious and popular answer has been Ashaya, Soul of the Wild. Its power and toughness match how many lands you have, and it makes each creature you own into Forests along with their other types. This means, each creature you control can tap for two G by tapping.

Harmonious Grovestrider is a costly, large threat that benefits from many terrain cards (similar to Ashaya, its power and toughness are based on how many lands you have).

Nissa, Who Shakes the World works perfectly as a go-to Planeswalker. One of her abilities causes every Forest produce extra green. (If you have the cub, that means those lands generate three green mana.) One loyalty ability functions like an early earthbend, adding counters on terrain, which is great but it isn't redundant with earthbending. Her ultimate, on the other hand, grants each land you control unbreakable and allows you to put onto the battlefield your remaining Forests from your library. Should you manage to use that ability, it almost certainly game over.

This card is a must-have for any kind of green-based Avatar strategies built around Earthbending. By including red-green, there’s Bumi Unleashed. This card features earthbend 4, plus if he deals combat damage to an opponent, land creatures are ready again for another attack. Although this card has emerged as a beloved leader, this small creature is set to be among the top, possibly the popular pick from this expansion.