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the popular card game’s collaboration with Avatar will not hit the general market before the end of the week, but following early access events this past weekend, an affordable green creature saw a sharp rise in price.

Even during previews, Badgermole Cub attracted significant interest. This two-power, two-toughness that costs one green and one colorless mana, the card has the Earthbend 1 ability (perhaps the best of the four bending abilities in the set). The real boon in its design comes from another power: Each time you tap a creature for mana, it provides bonus green mana.

At its cheapest, this card sold at around $27. After the pre-release weekend, yet, the going rate jumped above $45 with at least one listed as high as $60. The reason for Vivi prices for this little creature? Mainly due to the explosive mana ramping it provides.

When it arrives the board, the cub turns one land into a creature with earthbend. Alongside its mana-doubling effect, as long as it remains on the board, each affected land yields two mana instead of one — in addition to other creatures in your control that produce resources.

A clear choice for maximum effect is the classic Llanowar Elves, a low-cost creature that taps to generate G mana. But many other mana generation creatures out there. Another option is a higher-cost choice with stats 1/3 at a two-mana value instead.

Using land cards, mana-producing creatures, plus the cub, you may quickly play a massive pricey creature on the battlefield by round three or four. Momentum builds rapidly with continued aggression from there.

If you dip into an additional hue with this approach, cards like versatile mana producers are excellent picks which produce any mana color. Another card, a useful enchantment creature enables playing an additional land each turn plus transforms your entire land base into every basic land type. It's also worth trying such as this six-mana enchantment, which for six mana provides all of your permanents the ability to tap and generate a mana of any type — even all creatures in play.

Badgermole Cub could be too strong in terms of accelerating your resources, however what closes out the game for a deck like this? One obvious and popular answer has been Ashaya. Its stats are set by how many lands you have, plus it turns each creature you own Forests in addition to their original types. This means, each creature you control can tap for two G when tapped.

Another creature provides a high-cost, powerful body that benefits from many terrain cards (as with the previous card, its stats are based on the number of lands you control).

This Planeswalker is an excellent fit as a staple. One of her abilities causes Forest lands generate an additional green mana. (If you have the cub, this results in those lands yield three G.) Her plus ability is essentially a proto-earthbend, putting +1/+1 counters to a noncreature land, handy but does not overlap with earthbend. Her -8 ability, on the other hand, makes all of your lands immune to destruction and lets you put onto the battlefield all the remaining forests from your library. If you can actually activate that ability, this typically means the game ends.

The cub is nearly mandatory for all green-based Avatar strategies that use the earthbend mechanic. When branching into red and green, there’s Bumi Unleashed. This card features level 4 earthbending, and when damage is dealt in combat, land creatures untap and may attack once more. Even though Bumi is a popular Commander choice, the cub is set to be one of, if not the most desired card in the Avatar set.