🔗 Share this article

the popular card game’s Avatar crossover set isn't set to become widely available before the end of the week, yet after prerelease weekends this past weekend, an affordable green creature saw a sharp rise in price.

Even during previews, this small creature drew a lot of attention. A creature with stats 2/2 requiring G and 1 mana, Badgermole Cub has the Earthbend 1 ability (possibly the best within the four bending abilities in the set). The real boon here is its second ability: Whenever a creature is tapped to produce mana, add an additional green mana.

At its cheapest, Badgermole Cub could be purchased for $26.98. Post-prerelease, though, the market price jumped above $45 with at least one listed priced at sixty dollars. What explains Vivi prices for this little creature? Mainly because of the incredible mana acceleration it enables.

When it arrives play, the cub turns a land so it becomes a creature that has earthbending. Alongside its mana-doubling effect, while it remains on the board, every earthbent land generates double mana — plus any creatures in your control that generate mana.

The obvious go-to for synergy is this one-mana elf, a low-cost creature that taps to generate G mana. However there are plenty of creatures that make mana in the game. This particular druid costs a bit more with stats 1/3 for two mana instead.

Deploying terrain, creatures that tap for mana, plus the cub, you can easily get a massive and very expensive threat on the board by round three or four. And things just keep spiraling exponentially if you keep the pressure on from there.

By incorporating a secondary color in this strategy, cards like versatile mana producers work perfectly which produce any color of mana. And something like this powerful dryad lets you play another terrain per turn AND makes every land you control so they count as all basics. It's also worth trying something like the enchantment A Realm Reborn, costing six mana grants all of your permanents the ability to tap and generate a mana of any type — even any creature in play.

The cub could be too strong when it comes to ramping up your mana generation, however what closes out the game for a deck like this? An often-seen solution already is Ashaya, Soul of the Wild. Its power and toughness are both equal to your land count, and it makes all of your nontoken creatures to be Forests along with their original types. This means, all your creatures you control may tap for two G by tapping.

Another creature is a costly, large threat that benefits from many terrain cards (similar to Ashaya, its power and toughness match how many lands you have).

Nissa works perfectly as a go-to Planeswalker. Her passive ability makes all Forests produce extra green. (With a Badgermole Cub, so those lands generate three green mana.) Her plus ability acts as a proto-earthbend, adding counters to a noncreature land, handy but does not overlap with earthbend. Her ultimate, though, renders each land you control indestructible and lets you put onto the battlefield every Forest left from your library. If you can actually activate that ability, this typically means the game ends.

Badgermole Cub is a must-have for any kind of green Avatar deck that use earthbend. When branching into red-green, consider Bumi Unleashed. He has level 4 earthbending, plus if it hits a player to a player, all land creatures become untapped for another attack. Although this card has become a popular Commander choice, the cub is set to be one of, if not the most desired card in the collaboration.