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Magic: The Gathering’s special Avatar expansion isn't set to get a wider release until later this week, but due to prerelease weekends this past weekend, one cheap green card saw a sharp rise in price.

Even during previews, the earthbending cub garnered significant interest. A creature with stats 2/2 requiring one green and one colorless mana, the card has level 1 earthbending (possibly the best of the set’s four “bending” mechanics). The real boon in its design lies in its second ability: Whenever you tap a creature for mana, add an additional green mana.

When first listed, Badgermole Cub was available at around $27. Post-prerelease, yet, its value jumped to nearly $50 including listings priced at sixty dollars. What explains such high costs on this adorable card? Primarily because of the incredible mana acceleration it can produce.

As it hits play, this creature transforms a land into a creature that has earthbending. Alongside its mana-doubling effect, if it remains on the board, every earthbent land produces twice the mana — along with mana-producing creatures you have that produce resources.

An ideal partner for synergy would be the classic Llanowar Elves, a low-cost creature that taps to generate a green resource. But numerous other mana generation creatures available. Druid of the Cowl is a more expensive alternative with stats 1/3 costing two mana instead.

By playing lands, creatures that tap for mana, plus the cub, you may quickly play a massive high-cost monster into play early in the game. And things just keep spiraling rapidly with continued aggression after that.

By incorporating another color using this method, examples including versatile mana producers are excellent picks which produce all five colors. Another card, this powerful dryad enables playing an additional land each turn AND makes your entire land base into every basic land type. It's also worth trying something like a card called A Realm Reborn, which for six mana provides all of your permanents the capacity to tap and generate any color mana — including each creature you have on the board.

This card could be too strong when it comes to accelerating your resources, but what closes out the game for a deck like this? A common and powerful choice already is Ashaya, Soul of the Wild. Its stats match your land count, plus it turns each creature you own to be Forests along with their original types. In other words, each creature in play may tap for two G when tapped.

Another creature is a costly, large threat which gains from many terrain cards (similar to Ashaya, its power and toughness are based on your land total).

Nissa works perfectly in this deck. Her passive ability allows Forest lands tap for one more G. (Combined with earthbend, that means all earthbend forests generate three green mana.) Her plus ability acts as a proto-earthbend, adding counters to a noncreature land, which is great but it isn't redundant with earthbend. Her -8 ability, on the other hand, makes each land you control indestructible and allows you to draw out every Forest left in the deck. If you can actually activate the ultimate, it almost certainly the game ends.

The cub is nearly mandatory for all decks using green and Avatar that use Earthbending. When branching into red and green, you can use Bumi Unleashed. He has level 4 earthbending, and if he deals combat damage to a player, each animated land are ready again and may attack once more. Although this card is a fan favorite Commander, the cub is definitely going to remain one of, if not the most desired card in the collaboration.