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MTG’s collaboration with Avatar will not become widely available in the coming days, but due to pre-releases over the last few days, a low-cost green spell has already exploded in market worth.

Throughout the spoiler season, the earthbending cub garnered a lot of attention. A creature with stats 2/2 priced at G and 1 mana, the card has the Earthbend 1 ability (perhaps the most effective among the elemental mechanics available). The major perk here lies in an additional effect: Each time you tap a creature for mana, add an additional green mana.

When first listed, Badgermole Cub could be purchased below $30. After the pre-release weekend, however, the market price has shot up to nearly $50 including listings priced at sixty dollars. The reason for Vivi prices for this cute lil guy? Mostly due to the rapid resource generation it provides.

Upon entering the board, this creature turns a land so it becomes a creature that has earthbending. And with that second ability, as long as it remains on the board, each affected land yields two mana instead of one — in addition to mana-producing creatures in your control that generate mana.

An ideal partner for synergy would be Llanowar Elves, a low-cost creature that produces one green mana. However numerous other mana generation creatures out there. This particular druid is a higher-cost choice that’s a 1/3 at a two-mana value instead.

Using land cards, mana-producing creatures, and Badgermole Cub, it's simple to summon a massive and very expensive threat on the board early in the game. And things just keep spiraling exponentially by maintaining dominance after that.

If you dip into an additional hue using this method, examples including versatile mana producers are excellent picks that can make any mana color. And something like Dryad of the Ilysian Grove enables playing one extra land every round as well as makes every land you control providing all land types. You can also consider for example a card called A Realm Reborn, costing six mana gives every card you own the power to be tapped for a mana of any type — including each creature in play.

This card may be OP regarding accelerating your resources, but what’s the endgame finisher in such a strategy? One obvious and popular answer is Ashaya, Soul of the Wild. Its stats match how many lands you have, plus it turns all of your nontoken creatures to be Forests as well as their original types. This means, all your creatures you control may produce double green if used for mana.

Another creature is a costly, large threat which gains from a high land count (as with the previous card, its power and toughness are based on your land total).

Nissa works perfectly as a go-to Planeswalker. Her passive ability makes every Forest produce extra green. (With a Badgermole Cub, that means those lands generate three green mana.) Her plus ability functions like a form of land animation, placing counters on a land, a useful effect but does not overlap with earthbend. Her ultimate, however, grants each land you control immune to destruction enabling you to search for your remaining Forests from your library. If you can actually activate this power, it’s pretty much the game ends.

The cub is pretty much essential for all decks using green and Avatar built around Earthbending. If you dip into red-green, you can use Bumi. This card features level 4 earthbending, and if he deals combat damage in combat, all land creatures are ready again and can attack again. While that version has emerged as a fan favorite Commander, the cub is set to be among the top, possibly the sought-after card in the Avatar set.