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Magic: The Gathering’s Avatar crossover set won’t hit the general market before the end of the week, but after early access events recently, one cheap green card experienced a surge in value.

From the initial reveals, this small creature drew a lot of attention. A creature with stats 2/2 priced at G and 1 mana, it has level 1 earthbending (arguably the best within the set’s four “bending” mechanics). The real boon here comes from its second ability: Whenever you tap a creature for mana, you gain one extra green mana.

When first listed, this card sold for $26.98. Following the early events, yet, the market price jumped above $45 and one seller offering priced at sixty dollars. What explains such high costs for this little creature? Mainly because of the rapid resource generation it can produce.

When it arrives the board, the cub converts one land to a creature land with earthbend. Combined with its other power, as long as it stays in play, each affected land generates double mana — plus mana-producing creatures on your side that produce resources.

An ideal partner to combine with is the classic Llanowar Elves, a low-cost creature that produces one green mana. But numerous alternative mana dorks in the game. This particular druid costs a bit more a 1/3 creature costing two mana in comparison.

By playing lands, dorks that generate resources, plus the cub, you may quickly play a massive high-cost threat on the board by round three or four. The situation escalates rapidly if you keep the pressure on from that point.

If you dip into another color using this method, options such as versatile mana producers work perfectly which produce any mana color. Another card, a useful enchantment creature allows you to put an additional land per turn AND transforms all of your lands into every basic land type. It's also worth trying such as a card called A Realm Reborn, costing six mana provides all of your permanents the ability to be tapped for one mana of any color — even any creature you have on the board.

This card may be OP in terms of accelerating your resources, however how do you win in such a strategy? A common and powerful choice has been this legendary creature. Its power and toughness are both equal to the number of lands you control, and it changes all of your nontoken creatures into Forests as well as other subtypes. Essentially, each creature in play can tap for two G if used for mana.

This additional option is a costly, large threat that benefits from lots of lands (as with the previous card, its stats are equal to how many lands you have).

Nissa, Who Shakes the World is an excellent fit in this deck. Her passive ability causes all Forests tap for one more G. (With a Badgermole Cub, this results in those lands produce triple green.) Her main ability acts as a form of land animation, adding counters on a land, a useful effect but it isn't redundant with earthbend. Her -8 ability, however, renders each land you control indestructible and lets you search for all the remaining forests in the deck. Should you manage to use this power, it almost certainly you win.

Badgermole Cub is pretty much essential in any green-based Avatar strategies built around Earthbending. By including Gruul colors, there’s this legendary card. It possesses earthbend 4, plus if it hits a player to an opponent, all land creatures are ready again and can attack again. Even though Bumi has emerged as a fan favorite Commander, this small creature will surely stay among the top, possibly the popular pick from this expansion.