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the popular card game’s collaboration with Avatar won’t become widely available before the end of the week, however after pre-releases recently, one cheap green card experienced a surge in price.

Throughout the spoiler season, Badgermole Cub garnered significant interest. A 2/2 priced at a single green and one generic mana, it has the Earthbend 1 ability (arguably the best of the four bending abilities in the set). The real boon in its design lies in its second ability: If a creature is tapped to produce mana, add an additional green mana.

Initially, the card was available for $26.98. Post-prerelease, however, the going rate jumped above $45 and one seller offering as high as $60. What explains Vivi prices on this adorable card? Primarily due to the rapid resource generation it can produce.

Upon entering the board, the cub converts a terrain card into a creature granting it earthbend. Alongside its mana-doubling effect, while it stays in play, those lands produces twice the mana — plus any creatures on your side that generate mana.

An ideal partner for synergy is Llanowar Elves, an inexpensive 1/1 that produces G mana. Yet many other mana generation creatures in the game. Druid of the Cowl is a more expensive alternative a 1/3 creature for two mana instead.

By playing lands, dorks that generate resources, and Badgermole Cub, you can easily get a massive pricey threat on the board by round three or four. And things just keep spiraling rapidly with continued aggression from that point.

When adding another color using this method, examples including Fuel Tank Feaster, Ilysian Caryatid, and Paradise Druid are all great options that generate any color of mana. And something like this powerful dryad allows you to put another terrain per turn as well as turns all of your lands so they count as all basics. You can also consider something like a card called A Realm Reborn, costing six mana provides every card you own the capacity to produce one mana of any color — including each creature you have on the board.

Badgermole Cub might seem overpowered in terms of accelerating your resources, yet how do you win with this archetype? An often-seen solution has been Ashaya. Its stats are both equal to how many lands you have, and it changes each creature you own to be Forests as well as their original types. This means, every single creature on your board is able to generate two green mana if used for mana.

Harmonious Grovestrider is a costly, large threat that thrives with many terrain cards (as with the previous card, P/T match your land total).

This Planeswalker is an excellent fit as a staple. One of her abilities allows every Forest generate an additional green mana. (With a Badgermole Cub, that means all earthbend forests yield three G.) Her plus ability functions like an early earthbend, putting +1/+1 counters on terrain, handy but it isn't redundant with earthbend. The minus ability, though, grants all of your lands unbreakable and allows you to put onto the battlefield your remaining Forests from your library. Once you trigger the ultimate, it almost certainly game over.

Badgermole Cub is nearly mandatory for all decks using green and Avatar built around earthbend. When branching into red-green, you can use this legendary card. It possesses level 4 earthbending, and if it hits a player to a player, each animated land become untapped and can attack again. While that version has become a fan favorite Commander, the cub is definitely going to remain among the top, possibly the popular pick from this expansion.