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MTG’s special Avatar expansion won’t hit the general market before the end of the week, but after early access events over the last few days, an affordable green creature saw a sharp rise in market worth.

Throughout the spoiler season, the earthbending cub drew widespread focus. A creature with stats 2/2 requiring a single green and one generic mana, Badgermole Cub includes the Earthbend 1 ability (perhaps the best within the four bending abilities in the set). The real boon in its design lies in an additional effect: Each time you tap a creature for mana, it provides bonus green mana.

At its cheapest, the card sold at around $27. Post-prerelease, yet, the market price jumped above $45 and one seller offering for sale at $60.00. The reason for premium pricing for this cute lil guy? Primarily because of the explosive mana ramping it provides.

As it hits the board, this creature converts one land to a creature land with earthbend. And with that second ability, as long as it stays in play, those lands yields two mana instead of one — in addition to other creatures on your side that produce resources.

An ideal partner for maximum effect is Llanowar Elves, a cheap 1/1 that taps to generate G mana. However numerous alternative mana dorks in the game. Druid of the Cowl is a more expensive alternative that’s a 1/3 for two mana as an alternative.

Deploying terrain, mana-producing creatures, plus the cub, it's simple to summon a massive pricey monster into play early in the game. And things just keep spiraling exponentially with continued aggression after that.

If you dip into an additional hue with this approach, options such as these mana-fixing creatures are excellent picks that generate all five colors. Additionally, Dryad of the Ilysian Grove enables playing another terrain each turn AND makes every land you control into every basic land type. Another possibility is something like this six-mana enchantment, which for six mana gives each permanent you control the ability to tap and generate a mana of any type — including any creature under your control.

The cub might seem overpowered in terms of accelerating your resources, but what’s the endgame finisher in such a strategy? An often-seen solution is Ashaya. Its stats match how many lands you have, and it changes each creature you own Forests in addition to their original types. This means, each creature you control is able to produce double green by tapping.

Harmonious Grovestrider is another expensive, beefy creature which gains from many terrain cards (similar to Ashaya, its stats are based on your land total).

Nissa is an excellent fit as a go-to Planeswalker. One of her abilities allows all Forests tap for one more G. (If you have the cub, so all earthbend forests produce triple green.) Her main ability acts as an early earthbend, adding counters on a land, handy but does not overlap with the cub's ability. The minus ability, however, grants your entire land base immune to destruction and allows you to put onto the battlefield your remaining Forests in your deck. Should you manage to use that ability, it almost certainly you win.

This card is pretty much essential for any kind of green-based Avatar strategies focusing on Earthbending. By including Gruul colors, consider Bumi Unleashed. It possesses earthbend 4, plus if he deals combat damage to a player, land creatures are ready again and may attack once more. Even though Bumi is a fan favorite Commander, this small creature will surely stay one of the most, maybe the sought-after card in the collaboration.