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Magic: The Gathering’s Avatar crossover set isn't set to become widely available in the coming days, however due to early access events over the last few days, a low-cost green spell saw a sharp rise in price.

From the initial reveals, the earthbending cub attracted significant interest. A creature with stats 2/2 that costs G and 1 mana, Badgermole Cub has the Earthbend 1 ability (arguably the most effective among the set’s four “bending” mechanics). Its key advantage here comes from its second ability: If mana is generated by tapping a creature, add an additional green mana.

At its cheapest, the card could be purchased for $26.98. Following the early events, however, its value escalated above $45 with at least one listed priced at sixty dollars. What explains such high costs for this cute lil guy? Primarily thanks to the incredible mana acceleration it enables.

As it hits play, Badgermole Cub transforms a terrain card into a creature with earthbend. Combined with its other power, while it stays in play, each affected land generates double mana — plus mana-producing creatures you have that produce resources.

A clear choice for synergy is the classic Llanowar Elves, an inexpensive 1/1 that produces a green resource. However there are plenty of other mana generation creatures out there. Druid of the Cowl is a more expensive alternative with stats 1/3 costing two mana as an alternative.

Deploying terrain, mana-producing creatures, alongside this card, you can easily get an enormous high-cost monster into play by round three or four. The situation escalates exponentially by maintaining dominance after that.

If you dip into a secondary color using this method, cards like Fuel Tank Feaster, Ilysian Caryatid, and Paradise Druid work perfectly that can make any mana color. And something like this powerful dryad lets you play one extra land per turn AND turns your entire land base into every basic land type. Another possibility is such as this six-mana enchantment, at a six-mana investment gives all of your permanents the power to tap and generate one mana of any color — even each creature in play.

This card could be too strong in terms of ramping up your mana generation, but what closes out the game in such a strategy? A common and powerful choice is Ashaya. Its stats are both equal to the number of lands you control, plus it turns all of your nontoken creatures to be Forests in addition to their other types. In other words, each creature in play is able to generate two green mana by tapping.

Another creature provides a high-cost, powerful body that benefits from many terrain cards (similar to Ashaya, P/T are equal to how many lands you have).

This Planeswalker fits really well in this deck. Her passive ability allows Forest lands produce extra green. (With a Badgermole Cub, so each one produce triple green.) One loyalty ability acts as a proto-earthbend, adding counters on terrain, which is great but it isn't redundant with the cub's ability. Her ultimate, on the other hand, makes each land you control immune to destruction and lets you search for all the remaining forests from your library. Should you manage to use the ultimate, this typically means the game ends.

This card is pretty much essential for all green Avatar deck built around earthbend. If you dip into red and green, consider Bumi. This card features level 4 earthbending, and when he deals combat damage to a player, land creatures become untapped and may attack once more. Although this card is a popular Commander choice, the cub is definitely going to remain one of, if not the most sought-after card in the collaboration.