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Magic: The Gathering’s Avatar crossover set won’t hit the general market until later this week, however due to pre-releases recently, a low-cost green spell saw a sharp rise in price.

Even during previews, this small creature drew a lot of attention. This two-power, two-toughness requiring one green and one colorless mana, the card includes Earthbending 1 (arguably the best among the four bending abilities in the set). Its key advantage with this card lies in its second ability: If you tap a creature for mana, it provides bonus green mana.

At its cheapest, Badgermole Cub sold for $26.98. Following the early events, yet, its value jumped above $45 including listings for sale at $60.00. The reason for premium pricing for this little creature? Mainly due to the rapid resource generation it provides.

When it arrives the battlefield, Badgermole Cub transforms a land to a creature land that has earthbending. Combined with its other power, as long as it is not removed, those lands produces twice the mana — in addition to other creatures in your control that produce resources.

The obvious go-to for synergy is Llanowar Elves, a low-cost creature that produces a green resource. Yet there are plenty of alternative mana dorks in the game. Druid of the Cowl is a higher-cost choice that’s a 1/3 for two mana as an alternative.

Deploying terrain, creatures that tap for mana, and Badgermole Cub, you may quickly play a very big pricey creature into play within a few turns. And things just keep spiraling out of control by maintaining dominance from there.

By incorporating a secondary color using this method, options such as versatile mana producers are all great options that generate any mana color. Another card, this powerful dryad allows you to put an additional land every round AND turns your entire land base providing all land types. It's also worth trying something like the enchantment A Realm Reborn, which for six mana provides all of your permanents the capacity to tap and generate one mana of any color — which covers any creature under your control.

The cub may be OP in terms of boosting mana production, yet what closes out the game with this archetype? A common and powerful choice has been this legendary creature. Power and toughness are set by how many lands you have, plus it turns each creature you own into Forests in addition to their original types. Essentially, all your creatures in play can produce double green when tapped.

This additional option provides a high-cost, powerful body that thrives with lots of lands (like Ashaya, P/T match the number of lands you control).

Nissa is an excellent fit in this deck. Her static effect allows Forest lands tap for one more G. (If you have the cub, that means each one produce triple green.) Her plus ability is essentially an early earthbend, putting +1/+1 counters on terrain, which is great but does not overlap with earthbending. The minus ability, though, renders your entire land base indestructible and lets you search for your remaining Forests in the deck. If you can actually activate this power, it almost certainly game over.

Badgermole Cub is a must-have for any kind of green-based Avatar strategies built around the earthbend mechanic. When branching into red and green, there’s Bumi. It possesses level 4 earthbending, and when damage is dealt to a player, each animated land become untapped and may attack once more. While that version is a popular Commander choice, this small creature will surely stay one of, if not the most desired card in the Avatar set.