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the popular card game’s special Avatar expansion won’t hit the general market before the end of the week, yet after early access events recently, a low-cost green spell experienced a surge in price.

Even during previews, the earthbending cub drew widespread focus. A creature with stats 2/2 that costs G and 1 mana, it has Earthbending 1 (arguably the strongest within the four bending abilities in the set). The major perk with this card is an additional effect: Whenever you tap a creature for mana, it provides bonus green mana.

Initially, Badgermole Cub sold at around $27. Post-prerelease, however, the market price has shot up to nearly $50 and one seller offering as high as $60. What explains such high costs on this adorable card? Mainly due to the explosive mana ramping it provides.

Upon entering play, this creature turns a land so it becomes a creature that has earthbending. Alongside its mana-doubling effect, while it stays in play, each affected land produces twice the mana — in addition to any creatures you have that produce resources.

A clear choice to combine with includes the classic Llanowar Elves, a cheap 1/1 which can be tapped for one green mana. Yet there are plenty of alternative mana dorks out there. Druid of the Cowl is a more expensive alternative a 1/3 creature for two mana as an alternative.

Using land cards, creatures that tap for mana, plus the cub, you can easily get a very big and very expensive monster into play within a few turns. And things just keep spiraling rapidly if you keep the pressure on from that point.

If you dip into a secondary color using this method, examples including versatile mana producers are all great options which produce all five colors. Additionally, this powerful dryad allows you to put one extra land each turn AND turns all of your lands into every basic land type. It's also worth trying such as a card called A Realm Reborn, costing six mana provides every card you own the ability to tap and generate one mana of any color — which covers any creature in play.

This card could be too strong regarding ramping up your mana generation, yet what closes out the game in such a strategy? One obvious and popular answer is Ashaya. Its power and toughness match your land count, and it changes each creature you own into Forests in addition to their other types. In other words, all your creatures you control may generate two green mana if used for mana.

Another creature is a costly, large threat that benefits from lots of lands (similar to Ashaya, its power and toughness match your land total).

Nissa, Who Shakes the World fits really well as a go-to Planeswalker. Her passive ability makes all Forests generate an additional green mana. (If you have the cub, this results in each one generate three green mana.) Her plus ability functions like an early earthbend, placing counters on a land, which is great but it isn't redundant with the cub's ability. The minus ability, however, renders your entire land base indestructible and lets you put onto the battlefield every Forest left in the deck. Should you manage to use the ultimate, this typically means the game ends.

Badgermole Cub is pretty much essential for any kind of decks using green and Avatar built around the earthbend mechanic. By including red-green, there’s this legendary card. This card features level 4 earthbending, plus if damage is dealt in combat, all land creatures become untapped and can attack again. While that version has become a popular Commander choice, this small creature is set to be one of the most, maybe the popular pick in the Avatar set.