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the popular card game’s Avatar crossover set will not hit the general market until later this week, yet after pre-releases this past weekend, a low-cost green spell saw a sharp rise in price.

Even during previews, this small creature drew widespread focus. A creature with stats 2/2 that costs a single green and one generic mana, the card includes Earthbending 1 (perhaps the best among the elemental mechanics available). Its key advantage with this card is another power: Each time a creature is tapped to produce mana, add an additional green mana.

When first listed, the card could be purchased below $30. Following the early events, however, its value jumped to nearly $50 and one seller offering for sale at $60.00. The reason for Vivi prices for this cute lil guy? Primarily thanks to the rapid resource generation it can produce.

As it hits play, Badgermole Cub turns a terrain card to a creature land with earthbend. Alongside its mana-doubling effect, as long as it stays in play, those lands produces twice the mana — plus mana-producing creatures you have that generate mana.

A clear choice for maximum effect would be Llanowar Elves, a cheap 1/1 that produces one green mana. But numerous creatures that make mana out there. Druid of the Cowl is a higher-cost choice a 1/3 creature at a two-mana value in comparison.

Deploying terrain, dorks that generate resources, plus the cub, you may quickly play a very big and very expensive threat into play early in the game. Momentum builds exponentially by maintaining dominance from that point.

If you dip into a secondary color in this strategy, cards like these mana-fixing creatures are all great options that generate any mana color. And something like a useful enchantment creature lets you play another terrain each turn plus turns every land you control into every basic land type. You can also consider something like the enchantment A Realm Reborn, which for six mana grants every card you own the power to produce one mana of any color — even any creature you have on the board.

The cub might seem overpowered in terms of accelerating your resources, yet how do you win for a deck like this? One obvious and popular answer is Ashaya, Soul of the Wild. Power and toughness are both equal to your land count, plus it turns all of your nontoken creatures into Forests in addition to other subtypes. Essentially, every single creature in play may generate two green mana when tapped.

Another creature is another expensive, beefy creature that benefits from a high land count (as with the previous card, its power and toughness are based on your land total).

Nissa, Who Shakes the World is an excellent fit as a staple. Her passive ability causes every Forest tap for one more G. (Combined with earthbend, so each one produce triple green.) Her plus ability functions like a form of land animation, adding counters on a land, handy though it doesn't stack with the cub's ability. Her -8 ability, on the other hand, grants each land you control immune to destruction and lets you search for every Forest left in your deck. If you can actually activate this power, this typically means game over.

Badgermole Cub is nearly mandatory for all green-based Avatar strategies that use earthbend. When branching into red-green, consider this legendary card. This card features earthbend 4, plus if he deals combat damage to a player, each animated land untap and may attack once more. Even though Bumi is a popular Commander choice, this small creature is set to be among the top, possibly the popular pick from this expansion.