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Magic: The Gathering’s special Avatar expansion isn't set to become widely available until later this week, yet following prerelease weekends over the last few days, an affordable green creature experienced a surge in value.

Throughout the spoiler season, the earthbending cub drew significant interest. A creature with stats 2/2 priced at one green and one colorless mana, it features the Earthbend 1 ability (perhaps the strongest within the elemental mechanics available). Its key advantage in its design is an additional effect: If a creature is tapped to produce mana, it provides bonus green mana.

When first listed, the card could be purchased below $30. Post-prerelease, though, its value escalated above $45 and one seller offering as high as $60. Why are we seeing premium pricing for this little creature? Primarily because of the incredible mana acceleration it can produce.

When it arrives the board, the cub transforms one land into a creature with earthbend. Combined with its other power, while it stays in play, each affected land produces twice the mana — in addition to other creatures on your side that produce resources.

The obvious go-to to combine with would be the classic Llanowar Elves, a low-cost creature which can be tapped for one green mana. However numerous creatures that make mana available. This particular druid costs a bit more a 1/3 creature for two mana in comparison.

Deploying terrain, creatures that tap for mana, and Badgermole Cub, it's simple to summon a massive and very expensive threat into play by round three or four. And things just keep spiraling out of control if you keep the pressure on from there.

When adding an additional hue using this method, examples including these mana-fixing creatures are excellent picks which produce any color of mana. Additionally, a useful enchantment creature lets you play one extra land per turn as well as turns every land you control into every basic land type. Another possibility is such as this six-mana enchantment, which for six mana provides every card you own the ability to tap and generate one mana of any color — including any creature you have on the board.

This card could be too strong regarding accelerating your resources, yet how do you win with this archetype? A common and powerful choice is this legendary creature. Power and toughness match your land count, and it changes all of your nontoken creatures into Forests in addition to other subtypes. This means, each creature in play may generate two green mana when tapped.

This additional option is a costly, large threat that benefits from a high land count (similar to Ashaya, its power and toughness are based on how many lands you have).

Nissa is an excellent fit in this deck. Her passive ability makes all Forests tap for one more G. (With a Badgermole Cub, that means each one produce triple green.) One loyalty ability is essentially a form of land animation, placing counters to a noncreature land, which is great but it isn't redundant with the cub's ability. Her -8 ability, on the other hand, makes each land you control indestructible and lets you search for every Forest left in the deck. Should you manage to use that ability, it almost certainly game over.

This card is a must-have for all green Avatar deck that use the earthbend mechanic. When branching into Gruul colors, there’s this legendary card. He has earthbend 4, plus if it hits a player in combat, all land creatures are ready again and can attack again. Although this card has become a beloved leader, the cub will surely stay one of the most, maybe the desired card in the Avatar set.