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Magic: The Gathering’s collaboration with Avatar isn't set to become widely available in the coming days, however after prerelease weekends recently, one cheap green card saw a sharp rise in market worth.

From the initial reveals, Badgermole Cub garnered significant interest. A creature with stats 2/2 that costs a single green and one generic mana, the card has Earthbending 1 (arguably the best of the elemental mechanics available). The real boon in its design comes from another power: If a creature is tapped to produce mana, add an additional green mana.

When first listed, Badgermole Cub could be purchased at around $27. Following the early events, however, the going rate has shot up to nearly $50 with at least one listed priced at sixty dollars. What explains premium pricing for this little creature? Mainly thanks to the incredible mana acceleration it provides.

As it hits play, the cub turns a terrain card to a creature land granting it earthbend. And with that second ability, while it stays in play, each affected land generates double mana — along with other creatures in your control that produce resources.

A clear choice for synergy is this one-mana elf, an inexpensive 1/1 that taps to generate one green mana. Yet many other mana generation creatures out there. Druid of the Cowl is a more expensive alternative that’s a 1/3 for two mana instead.

By playing lands, mana-producing creatures, plus the cub, you may quickly play a very big pricey creature into play by round three or four. And things just keep spiraling rapidly if you keep the pressure on after that.

By incorporating another color using this method, options such as these mana-fixing creatures work perfectly that generate any color of mana. Additionally, Dryad of the Ilysian Grove allows you to put another terrain each turn plus makes all of your lands providing all land types. It's also worth trying such as a card called A Realm Reborn, which for six mana gives every card you own the power to tap and generate a mana of any type — even each creature in play.

Badgermole Cub could be too strong when it comes to ramping up your mana generation, but how do you win for a deck like this? A common and powerful choice has been Ashaya. Its power and toughness are set by the number of lands you control, plus it turns each creature you own to be Forests as well as their other types. In other words, all your creatures in play is able to tap for two G if used for mana.

Harmonious Grovestrider is a costly, large threat that benefits from a high land count (similar to Ashaya, its power and toughness are based on how many lands you have).

Nissa, Who Shakes the World fits really well as a staple. Her static effect causes all Forests generate an additional green mana. (Combined with earthbend, so each one generate three green mana.) Her plus ability is essentially a form of land animation, adding counters to a noncreature land, handy but does not overlap with the cub's ability. Her ultimate, on the other hand, renders all of your lands immune to destruction and allows you to put onto the battlefield every Forest left in your deck. Should you manage to use this power, it’s pretty much the game ends.

Badgermole Cub is pretty much essential for all decks using green and Avatar focusing on earthbend. By including red and green, there’s Bumi Unleashed. This card features earthbend 4, and if damage is dealt to a player, each animated land become untapped for another attack. Although this card is a popular Commander choice, the cute little Badgermole Cub is set to be one of, if not the most popular pick from this expansion.