A standout from the Avatar-themed most adorable MTG cards is a powerful compact contender.

the popular card game’s Avatar crossover set won’t get a wider release in the coming days, yet due to pre-releases this past weekend, a low-cost green spell experienced a surge in value.

From the initial reveals, this small creature garnered a lot of attention. A creature with stats 2/2 requiring a single green and one generic mana, it features Earthbending 1 (arguably the most effective within the elemental mechanics available). Its key advantage with this card comes from another power: Each time you tap a creature for mana, it provides bonus green mana.

At its cheapest, Badgermole Cub was available for $26.98. Post-prerelease, though, the going rate has shot up above $45 including listings for sale at $60.00. What explains such high costs for this cute lil guy? Mainly due to the explosive mana ramping it enables.

Upon entering the battlefield, the cub converts a terrain card to a creature land that has earthbending. Alongside its mana-doubling effect, if it stays in play, those lands produces twice the mana — along with mana-producing creatures in your control that generate mana.

An ideal partner for maximum effect is Llanowar Elves, a cheap 1/1 that produces a green resource. However many creatures that make mana in the game. This particular druid is a higher-cost choice a 1/3 creature for two mana as an alternative.

By playing lands, creatures that tap for mana, plus the cub, you may quickly play a very big pricey threat on the battlefield by round three or four. The situation escalates out of control if you keep the pressure on from there.

By incorporating an additional hue in this strategy, examples including versatile mana producers are all great options that can make any mana color. Another card, this powerful dryad lets you play one extra land each turn plus turns your entire land base so they count as all basics. It's also worth trying something like a card called A Realm Reborn, costing six mana provides every card you own the capacity to be tapped for one mana of any color — even all creatures under your control.

Badgermole Cub may be OP in terms of accelerating your resources, however what closes out the game for a deck like this? One obvious and popular answer already is this legendary creature. Power and toughness are both equal to how many lands you have, and it makes your non-token creatures to be Forests as well as their original types. In other words, all your creatures on your board can produce double green if used for mana.

Another creature provides a high-cost, powerful body that thrives with many terrain cards (similar to Ashaya, P/T are equal to the number of lands you control).

This Planeswalker works perfectly as a staple. Her passive ability causes all Forests tap for one more G. (With a Badgermole Cub, so all earthbend forests generate three green mana.) One loyalty ability functions like a proto-earthbend, placing counters on terrain, handy but it isn't redundant with earthbend. The minus ability, though, makes each land you control unbreakable enabling you to draw out all the remaining forests in your deck. Should you manage to use this power, it almost certainly you win.

The cub is nearly mandatory in any green-based Avatar strategies built around earthbend. When branching into Gruul colors, there’s this legendary card. He has earthbend 4, and if it hits a player to an opponent, all land creatures are ready again and can attack again. Although this card has become a beloved leader, the cute little Badgermole Cub is set to be among the top, possibly the desired card from this expansion.