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MTG’s Avatar crossover set isn't set to become widely available before the end of the week, but after prerelease weekends recently, one cheap green card experienced a surge in market worth.

Throughout the spoiler season, this small creature drew widespread focus. A creature with stats 2/2 that costs one green and one colorless mana, it includes Earthbending 1 (possibly the strongest within the four bending abilities in the set). The major perk here comes from its second ability: If a creature is tapped to produce mana, you gain one extra green mana.

When first listed, this card sold below $30. Following the early events, yet, the market price escalated above $45 including listings for sale at $60.00. Why are we seeing premium pricing for this little creature? Primarily due to the rapid resource generation it enables.

Upon entering the board, this creature converts one land to a creature land with earthbend. And with that second ability, if it stays in play, every earthbent land generates double mana — along with other creatures on your side that produce resources.

An ideal partner for synergy includes Llanowar Elves, a cheap 1/1 that produces G mana. Yet many other mana generation creatures in the game. Another option is a higher-cost choice that’s a 1/3 for two mana instead.

Using land cards, creatures that tap for mana, plus the cub, you may quickly play a massive and very expensive monster on the battlefield by round three or four. The situation escalates out of control with continued aggression from there.

When adding an additional hue with this approach, options such as Fuel Tank Feaster, Ilysian Caryatid, and Paradise Druid work perfectly which produce any color of mana. Additionally, a useful enchantment creature enables playing another terrain every round plus transforms your entire land base so they count as all basics. It's also worth trying such as a card called A Realm Reborn, which for six mana grants all of your permanents the capacity to tap and generate a mana of any type — which covers all creatures in play.

Badgermole Cub could be too strong regarding accelerating your resources, however how do you win in such a strategy? A common and powerful choice has been Ashaya. Its stats are both equal to the number of lands you control, plus it turns all of your nontoken creatures Forests along with their other types. In other words, each creature on your board may produce double green by tapping.

This additional option is another expensive, beefy creature that thrives with lots of lands (as with the previous card, its stats are based on the number of lands you control).

This Planeswalker is an excellent fit in this deck. Her passive ability causes Forest lands tap for one more G. (With a Badgermole Cub, that means each one generate three green mana.) Her main ability functions like a proto-earthbend, putting +1/+1 counters on terrain, a useful effect but does not overlap with earthbend. Her ultimate, though, renders all of your lands immune to destruction enabling you to draw out all the remaining forests in the deck. If you can actually activate that ability, this typically means you win.

The cub is nearly mandatory for any kind of green Avatar deck focusing on the earthbend mechanic. By including Gruul colors, consider Bumi Unleashed. It possesses earthbend 4, plus if damage is dealt to an opponent, each animated land are ready again for another attack. Although this card has emerged as a beloved leader, the cub is definitely going to remain one of the most, maybe the popular pick in the collaboration.