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Magic: The Gathering’s Avatar crossover set will not become widely available in the coming days, but after early access events recently, an affordable green creature experienced a surge in market worth.

From the initial reveals, Badgermole Cub attracted a lot of attention. This two-power, two-toughness requiring one green and one colorless mana, Badgermole Cub includes Earthbending 1 (possibly the strongest within the set’s four “bending” mechanics). The real boon in its design comes from its second ability: Whenever you tap a creature for mana, you gain one extra green mana.

At its cheapest, the card sold for $26.98. After the pre-release weekend, yet, the going rate jumped to $49.66 and one seller offering priced at sixty dollars. What explains premium pricing on this adorable card? Mainly thanks to the explosive mana ramping it provides.

Upon entering the battlefield, Badgermole Cub transforms a land so it becomes a creature with earthbend. Combined with its other power, as long as it is not removed, every earthbent land produces twice the mana — along with any creatures on your side that generate mana.

An ideal partner to combine with includes this one-mana elf, a low-cost creature which can be tapped for one green mana. Yet numerous other mana generation creatures available. This particular druid is a more expensive alternative that’s a 1/3 costing two mana instead.

Deploying terrain, creatures that tap for mana, alongside this card, you can easily get an enormous pricey monster into play by round three or four. The situation escalates out of control with continued aggression from there.

If you dip into a secondary color with this approach, options such as these mana-fixing creatures are excellent picks which produce any mana color. Additionally, this powerful dryad allows you to put another terrain each turn plus makes your entire land base so they count as all basics. You can also consider something like a card called A Realm Reborn, costing six mana gives each permanent you control the capacity to tap and generate one mana of any color — including all creatures you have on the board.

Badgermole Cub may be OP regarding accelerating your resources, yet how do you win in such a strategy? A common and powerful choice is this legendary creature. Power and toughness are set by your land count, and it changes your non-token creatures Forests as well as their other types. In other words, every single creature you control can tap for two G by tapping.

Harmonious Grovestrider provides a high-cost, powerful body which gains from many terrain cards (like Ashaya, its stats are based on how many lands you have).

Nissa fits really well as a go-to Planeswalker. Her passive ability causes all Forests produce extra green. (If you have the cub, so all earthbend forests produce triple green.) One loyalty ability is essentially a proto-earthbend, putting +1/+1 counters on a land, a useful effect but it isn't redundant with the cub's ability. Her -8 ability, though, grants all of your lands immune to destruction enabling you to search for all the remaining forests in your deck. Should you manage to use the ultimate, it almost certainly the game ends.

The cub is nearly mandatory in any green-based Avatar strategies built around earthbend. When branching into red-green, you can use this legendary card. It possesses earthbend 4, plus if damage is dealt to an opponent, each animated land become untapped and can attack again. Even though Bumi is a popular Commander choice, the cub is set to be among the top, possibly the popular pick from this expansion.