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Magic: The Gathering’s collaboration with Avatar won’t hit the general market until later this week, but after pre-releases over the last few days, an affordable green creature has already exploded in market worth.

Even during previews, Badgermole Cub garnered widespread focus. This two-power, two-toughness priced at one green and one colorless mana, Badgermole Cub features the Earthbend 1 ability (possibly the strongest among the elemental mechanics available). The real boon here is another power: Whenever mana is generated by tapping a creature, you gain one extra green mana.

Initially, this card sold below $30. Following the early events, however, the market price jumped to $49.66 and one seller offering as high as $60. Why are we seeing premium pricing on this adorable card? Primarily thanks to the incredible mana acceleration it provides.

As it hits the board, Badgermole Cub turns one land to a creature land that has earthbending. Alongside its mana-doubling effect, as long as it stays in play, those lands produces twice the mana — plus mana-producing creatures on your side that produce resources.

A clear choice for synergy is this one-mana elf, a cheap 1/1 that produces a green resource. However there are plenty of creatures that make mana available. Another option is a more expensive alternative a 1/3 creature for two mana instead.

Using land cards, mana-producing creatures, alongside this card, it's simple to summon a very big high-cost monster on the battlefield within a few turns. The situation escalates exponentially if you keep the pressure on from there.

By incorporating a secondary color in this strategy, cards like these mana-fixing creatures are excellent picks that generate any mana color. Additionally, this powerful dryad enables playing another terrain per turn plus makes your entire land base so they count as all basics. It's also worth trying for example the enchantment A Realm Reborn, at a six-mana investment provides all of your permanents the capacity to produce any color mana — which covers each creature you have on the board.

The cub may be OP regarding ramping up your mana generation, but what’s the endgame finisher for a deck like this? One obvious and popular answer has been Ashaya, Soul of the Wild. Its stats are set by the number of lands you control, and it makes each creature you own to be Forests in addition to their other types. In other words, all your creatures on your board is able to tap for two G by tapping.

Harmonious Grovestrider is another expensive, beefy creature that benefits from a high land count (similar to Ashaya, its power and toughness match how many lands you have).

This Planeswalker works perfectly as a staple. One of her abilities makes every Forest tap for one more G. (If you have the cub, that means those lands generate three green mana.) Her main ability acts as a proto-earthbend, adding counters on a land, a useful effect but it isn't redundant with earthbending. Her ultimate, however, makes all of your lands unbreakable and lets you put onto the battlefield all the remaining forests in your deck. Once you trigger the ultimate, it’s pretty much the game ends.

This card is nearly mandatory for all decks using green and Avatar built around earthbend. If you dip into red and green, consider Bumi Unleashed. This card features level 4 earthbending, and if it hits a player in combat, each animated land untap and may attack once more. Although this card has emerged as a popular Commander choice, this small creature will surely stay one of the most, maybe the sought-after card in the collaboration.