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the popular card game’s collaboration with Avatar won’t hit the general market before the end of the week, but after pre-releases this past weekend, an affordable green creature experienced a surge in value.

Throughout the spoiler season, Badgermole Cub drew widespread focus. This two-power, two-toughness requiring a single green and one generic mana, Badgermole Cub includes the Earthbend 1 ability (arguably the strongest of the four bending abilities in the set). Its key advantage here comes from an additional effect: If you tap a creature for mana, add an additional green mana.

At its cheapest, the card was available at around $27. Following the early events, yet, its value jumped above $45 including listings as high as $60. What explains premium pricing for this little creature? Primarily due to the incredible mana acceleration it provides.

Upon entering the board, this creature converts a land so it becomes a creature that has earthbending. Combined with its other power, while it is not removed, each affected land generates double mana — plus mana-producing creatures on your side that generate mana.

The obvious go-to for synergy would be Llanowar Elves, a low-cost creature that produces G mana. However there are plenty of creatures that make mana in the game. Druid of the Cowl costs a bit more that’s a 1/3 for two mana instead.

By playing lands, creatures that tap for mana, and Badgermole Cub, you may quickly play a very big high-cost creature on the board by round three or four. The situation escalates rapidly with continued aggression from that point.

By incorporating a secondary color using this method, cards like versatile mana producers work perfectly that generate any mana color. And something like a useful enchantment creature enables playing another terrain every round as well as transforms all of your lands into every basic land type. You can also consider such as the enchantment A Realm Reborn, costing six mana gives every card you own the ability to be tapped for one mana of any color — which covers any creature in play.

Badgermole Cub could be too strong when it comes to accelerating your resources, yet how do you win with this archetype? One obvious and popular answer is Ashaya. Its stats match the number of lands you control, and it makes each creature you own to be Forests along with their other types. Essentially, every single creature in play is able to tap for two G if used for mana.

Harmonious Grovestrider is another expensive, beefy creature that benefits from a high land count (similar to Ashaya, its stats match the number of lands you control).

Nissa is an excellent fit as a go-to Planeswalker. Her passive ability makes Forest lands tap for one more G. (If you have the cub, so each one generate three green mana.) Her main ability acts as a proto-earthbend, adding counters on terrain, handy though it doesn't stack with the cub's ability. Her -8 ability, however, renders your entire land base indestructible and allows you to search for every Forest left in your deck. Once you trigger this power, it almost certainly game over.

The cub is pretty much essential for all decks using green and Avatar focusing on the earthbend mechanic. If you dip into red and green, there’s Bumi. It possesses level 4 earthbending, and if he deals combat damage in combat, each animated land are ready again and may attack once more. While that version is a popular Commander choice, this small creature is definitely going to remain one of the most, maybe the popular pick from this expansion.