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MTG’s collaboration with Avatar won’t hit the general market before the end of the week, but following prerelease weekends this past weekend, a low-cost green spell experienced a surge in value.

Even during previews, the earthbending cub attracted widespread focus. A creature with stats 2/2 priced at one green and one colorless mana, the card features the Earthbend 1 ability (perhaps the most effective within the four bending abilities in the set). Its key advantage with this card lies in another power: Each time a creature is tapped to produce mana, add an additional green mana.

Initially, Badgermole Cub sold below $30. After the pre-release weekend, though, the market price has shot up to nearly $50 and one seller offering as high as $60. Why are we seeing premium pricing for this cute lil guy? Mainly due to the explosive mana ramping it can produce.

As it hits the board, Badgermole Cub turns one land so it becomes a creature that has earthbending. Combined with its other power, as long as it is not removed, those lands produces twice the mana — plus other creatures in your control that produce resources.

A clear choice to combine with includes this one-mana elf, a cheap 1/1 which can be tapped for G mana. Yet numerous alternative mana dorks in the game. Another option is a more expensive alternative that’s a 1/3 costing two mana in comparison.

By playing lands, creatures that tap for mana, plus the cub, it's simple to summon a massive and very expensive monster on the board by round three or four. The situation escalates out of control with continued aggression from there.

By incorporating another color using this method, cards like versatile mana producers work perfectly which produce all five colors. And something like a useful enchantment creature lets you play one extra land each turn as well as transforms every land you control providing all land types. You can also consider for example a card called A Realm Reborn, at a six-mana investment grants each permanent you control the ability to tap and generate any color mana — which covers all creatures you have on the board.

This card could be too strong regarding boosting mana production, but what’s the endgame finisher with this archetype? One obvious and popular answer already is Ashaya, Soul of the Wild. Its power and toughness are set by how many lands you have, and it changes your non-token creatures Forests in addition to their original types. Essentially, all your creatures you control can produce double green by tapping.

Harmonious Grovestrider is another expensive, beefy creature that thrives with lots of lands (like Ashaya, its power and toughness are equal to the number of lands you control).

Nissa fits really well as a go-to Planeswalker. Her passive ability makes Forest lands produce extra green. (Combined with earthbend, that means each one produce triple green.) One loyalty ability is essentially a form of land animation, putting +1/+1 counters to a noncreature land, which is great but it isn't redundant with earthbend. Her -8 ability, though, renders all of your lands indestructible and allows you to search for all the remaining forests in your deck. Once you trigger the ultimate, this typically means game over.

The cub is nearly mandatory for all green-based Avatar strategies built around earthbend. By including red and green, you can use Bumi Unleashed. He has earthbend 4, and when he deals combat damage to an opponent, all land creatures are ready again and can attack again. Although this card is a beloved leader, this small creature is definitely going to remain one of the most, maybe the sought-after card from this expansion.