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Magic: The Gathering’s special Avatar expansion isn't set to become widely available until later this week, yet following early access events recently, one cheap green card experienced a surge in value.

From the initial reveals, the earthbending cub garnered widespread focus. A creature with stats 2/2 requiring G and 1 mana, it includes Earthbending 1 (possibly the best within the four bending abilities in the set). The real boon in its design is another power: Whenever you tap a creature for mana, you gain one extra green mana.

When first listed, Badgermole Cub was available below $30. After the pre-release weekend, though, the going rate escalated above $45 including listings as high as $60. The reason for such high costs for this cute lil guy? Primarily due to the rapid resource generation it provides.

Upon entering the battlefield, this creature turns one land into a creature that has earthbending. And with that second ability, as long as it remains on the board, those lands yields two mana instead of one — in addition to mana-producing creatures on your side that generate mana.

An ideal partner for synergy would be this one-mana elf, a cheap 1/1 that taps to generate G mana. But many alternative mana dorks available. Druid of the Cowl is a higher-cost choice that’s a 1/3 costing two mana as an alternative.

Deploying terrain, creatures that tap for mana, plus the cub, you can easily get a massive and very expensive monster into play early in the game. Momentum builds exponentially by maintaining dominance from there.

By incorporating a secondary color using this method, examples including versatile mana producers are all great options which produce any color of mana. Another card, Dryad of the Ilysian Grove enables playing an additional land per turn AND makes your entire land base into every basic land type. Another possibility is such as the enchantment A Realm Reborn, costing six mana gives each permanent you control the capacity to tap and generate one mana of any color — which covers each creature you have on the board.

The cub might seem overpowered when it comes to boosting mana production, but how do you win in such a strategy? One obvious and popular answer already is Ashaya. Its stats match your land count, and it makes your non-token creatures into Forests as well as their other types. In other words, each creature on your board is able to generate two green mana by tapping.

Harmonious Grovestrider is a costly, large threat that benefits from many terrain cards (like Ashaya, its power and toughness match the number of lands you control).

This Planeswalker is an excellent fit as a go-to Planeswalker. One of her abilities allows Forest lands tap for one more G. (With a Badgermole Cub, this results in all earthbend forests yield three G.) Her plus ability is essentially an early earthbend, adding counters on a land, handy but it isn't redundant with earthbending. Her ultimate, however, makes all of your lands unbreakable and allows you to search for all the remaining forests in the deck. Once you trigger that ability, it almost certainly game over.

Badgermole Cub is a must-have in any green-based Avatar strategies built around earthbend. When branching into red-green, consider Bumi. He has earthbend 4, and if he deals combat damage to a player, land creatures become untapped and can attack again. Although this card has emerged as a beloved leader, this small creature is definitely going to remain among the top, possibly the sought-after card in the collaboration.