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Magic: The Gathering’s collaboration with Avatar isn't set to become widely available until later this week, but after early access events over the last few days, an affordable green creature experienced a surge in price.

From the initial reveals, the earthbending cub garnered a lot of attention. This two-power, two-toughness requiring G and 1 mana, Badgermole Cub features Earthbending 1 (perhaps the best among the four bending abilities in the set). The real boon in its design comes from an additional effect: If a creature is tapped to produce mana, it provides bonus green mana.

At its cheapest, this card could be purchased below $30. After the pre-release weekend, yet, the market price has shot up to $49.66 including listings priced at sixty dollars. What explains Vivi prices for this little creature? Mostly because of the explosive mana ramping it enables.

As it hits play, Badgermole Cub converts a land into a creature with earthbend. And with that second ability, if it stays in play, each affected land generates double mana — along with other creatures you have that generate mana.

The obvious go-to for synergy would be Llanowar Elves, a low-cost creature which can be tapped for a green resource. However many creatures that make mana available. Another option is a more expensive alternative that’s a 1/3 costing two mana instead.

By playing lands, creatures that tap for mana, alongside this card, it's simple to summon a very big and very expensive monster on the battlefield within a few turns. The situation escalates exponentially with continued aggression from there.

By incorporating another color in this strategy, examples including Fuel Tank Feaster, Ilysian Caryatid, and Paradise Druid work perfectly which produce any color of mana. And something like Dryad of the Ilysian Grove allows you to put one extra land each turn as well as transforms all of your lands providing all land types. It's also worth trying such as this six-mana enchantment, which for six mana provides all of your permanents the capacity to be tapped for one mana of any color — which covers all creatures you have on the board.

The cub might seem overpowered in terms of boosting mana production, yet how do you win with this archetype? One obvious and popular answer is this legendary creature. Its power and toughness match your land count, and it changes all of your nontoken creatures Forests along with their other types. In other words, all your creatures you control may tap for two G if used for mana.

Harmonious Grovestrider is a costly, large threat that benefits from a high land count (as with the previous card, its stats match how many lands you have).

Nissa works perfectly in this deck. Her static effect causes Forest lands generate an additional green mana. (Combined with earthbend, that means those lands produce triple green.) Her plus ability functions like a form of land animation, putting +1/+1 counters on a land, handy but it isn't redundant with earthbend. Her -8 ability, though, makes each land you control unbreakable and allows you to put onto the battlefield all the remaining forests in your deck. If you can actually activate that ability, this typically means the game ends.

The cub is nearly mandatory for any kind of green-based Avatar strategies built around earthbend. When branching into Gruul colors, there’s this legendary card. It possesses level 4 earthbending, and when it hits a player to a player, each animated land become untapped and can attack again. Although this card is a fan favorite Commander, the cute little Badgermole Cub is set to be one of the most, maybe the popular pick from this expansion.