🔗 Share this article

MTG’s collaboration with Avatar won’t hit the general market until later this week, but after pre-releases this past weekend, one cheap green card has already exploded in market worth.

From the initial reveals, this small creature garnered a lot of attention. A 2/2 priced at G and 1 mana, Badgermole Cub includes Earthbending 1 (perhaps the most effective within the set’s four “bending” mechanics). The real boon in its design is its second ability: Whenever you tap a creature for mana, add an additional green mana.

Initially, Badgermole Cub sold for $26.98. Following the early events, however, the going rate jumped to nearly $50 including listings priced at sixty dollars. The reason for such high costs for this cute lil guy? Mostly because of the explosive mana ramping it can produce.

As it hits the board, the cub turns a land into a creature with earthbend. And with that second ability, while it is not removed, each affected land produces twice the mana — in addition to mana-producing creatures on your side that generate mana.

A clear choice for synergy includes this one-mana elf, a cheap 1/1 that produces a green resource. However numerous other mana generation creatures in the game. This particular druid costs a bit more with stats 1/3 for two mana instead.

By playing lands, creatures that tap for mana, plus the cub, it's simple to summon a very big high-cost creature on the battlefield early in the game. The situation escalates rapidly if you keep the pressure on from that point.

If you dip into a secondary color in this strategy, options such as versatile mana producers are all great options that can make any mana color. Additionally, Dryad of the Ilysian Grove lets you play one extra land each turn plus transforms every land you control so they count as all basics. Another possibility is something like the enchantment A Realm Reborn, costing six mana gives each permanent you control the power to be tapped for any color mana — even each creature you have on the board.

This card may be OP when it comes to accelerating your resources, however what closes out the game in such a strategy? A common and powerful choice is Ashaya, Soul of the Wild. Power and toughness are set by the number of lands you control, and it makes each creature you own into Forests as well as their other types. In other words, each creature you control may produce double green when tapped.

Harmonious Grovestrider is another expensive, beefy creature that thrives with lots of lands (like Ashaya, its stats are equal to your land total).

This Planeswalker works perfectly in this deck. Her passive ability makes every Forest produce extra green. (If you have the cub, this results in all earthbend forests produce triple green.) Her plus ability acts as a form of land animation, putting +1/+1 counters to a noncreature land, handy but it isn't redundant with the cub's ability. Her ultimate, on the other hand, grants your entire land base unbreakable enabling you to draw out every Forest left from your library. If you can actually activate that ability, it almost certainly the game ends.

Badgermole Cub is pretty much essential for any kind of green-based Avatar strategies built around Earthbending. If you dip into red and green, there’s Bumi. This card features level 4 earthbending, plus if damage is dealt to a player, land creatures are ready again and may attack once more. While that version has become a popular Commander choice, the cub is set to be among the top, possibly the sought-after card from this expansion.