🔗 Share this article

the popular card game’s special Avatar expansion isn't set to become widely available in the coming days, but after prerelease weekends recently, an affordable green creature has already exploded in market worth.

From the initial reveals, the earthbending cub attracted a lot of attention. A creature with stats 2/2 requiring G and 1 mana, the card features Earthbending 1 (perhaps the strongest among the four bending abilities in the set). The major perk with this card comes from its second ability: Each time a creature is tapped to produce mana, it provides bonus green mana.

At its cheapest, Badgermole Cub sold at around $27. Post-prerelease, though, the market price jumped to nearly $50 including listings as high as $60. What explains premium pricing for this cute lil guy? Mostly because of the rapid resource generation it enables.

As it hits play, this creature transforms a land into a creature granting it earthbend. Alongside its mana-doubling effect, as long as it stays in play, every earthbent land produces twice the mana — plus any creatures in your control that generate mana.

A clear choice to combine with would be Llanowar Elves, a low-cost creature that produces one green mana. But many other mana generation creatures out there. Druid of the Cowl is a higher-cost choice with stats 1/3 at a two-mana value in comparison.

By playing lands, mana-producing creatures, and Badgermole Cub, it's simple to summon an enormous pricey creature into play by round three or four. And things just keep spiraling rapidly with continued aggression after that.

When adding an additional hue with this approach, cards like these mana-fixing creatures are all great options that can make all five colors. Additionally, Dryad of the Ilysian Grove lets you play an additional land each turn as well as makes your entire land base into every basic land type. Another possibility is such as this six-mana enchantment, at a six-mana investment provides each permanent you control the power to be tapped for any color mana — including each creature under your control.

Badgermole Cub may be OP when it comes to boosting mana production, but how do you win in such a strategy? One obvious and popular answer is Ashaya. Its power and toughness are both equal to your land count, plus it turns all of your nontoken creatures Forests along with their other types. In other words, every single creature on your board is able to tap for two G by tapping.

Another creature provides a high-cost, powerful body that benefits from many terrain cards (as with the previous card, P/T are based on how many lands you have).

Nissa works perfectly as a go-to Planeswalker. Her static effect causes all Forests tap for one more G. (Combined with earthbend, this results in all earthbend forests yield three G.) Her main ability is essentially a proto-earthbend, putting +1/+1 counters on a land, handy but does not overlap with earthbend. The minus ability, though, renders your entire land base indestructible and allows you to put onto the battlefield every Forest left from your library. Should you manage to use the ultimate, it almost certainly you win.

The cub is pretty much essential for all decks using green and Avatar focusing on earthbend. When branching into Gruul colors, consider Bumi. It possesses level 4 earthbending, plus if it hits a player to a player, all land creatures are ready again for another attack. While that version has emerged as a beloved leader, the cub is set to be among the top, possibly the desired card in the collaboration.