One of Avatar's cutest Magic cards is a powerful compact contender.

the popular card game’s Avatar crossover set will not get a wider release until later this week, however after early access events over the last few days, a low-cost green spell has already exploded in value.

Even during previews, this small creature drew widespread focus. A creature with stats 2/2 that costs one green and one colorless mana, the card includes Earthbending 1 (perhaps the most effective among the elemental mechanics available). Its key advantage with this card comes from its second ability: If mana is generated by tapping a creature, you gain one extra green mana.

At its cheapest, this card was available for $26.98. Following the early events, however, the market price jumped to nearly $50 with at least one listed as high as $60. The reason for such high costs for this cute lil guy? Primarily because of the rapid resource generation it enables.

When it arrives the battlefield, Badgermole Cub turns a terrain card to a creature land with earthbend. Alongside its mana-doubling effect, if it is not removed, every earthbent land generates double mana — along with mana-producing creatures you have that produce resources.

An ideal partner for maximum effect would be this one-mana elf, an inexpensive 1/1 that taps to generate a green resource. But numerous alternative mana dorks available. Druid of the Cowl costs a bit more a 1/3 creature for two mana in comparison.

Deploying terrain, dorks that generate resources, plus the cub, it's simple to summon an enormous high-cost creature on the battlefield by round three or four. And things just keep spiraling exponentially by maintaining dominance after that.

By incorporating a secondary color in this strategy, examples including these mana-fixing creatures are excellent picks that can make any mana color. And something like a useful enchantment creature lets you play one extra land every round AND turns your entire land base so they count as all basics. It's also worth trying something like 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 all creatures you have on the board.

The cub may be OP regarding accelerating your resources, but what’s the endgame finisher with this archetype? One obvious and popular answer already is Ashaya, Soul of the Wild. Power and toughness are both equal to the number of lands you control, plus it turns all of your nontoken creatures Forests along with their original types. Essentially, every single creature on your board may produce double green when tapped.

This additional option is a costly, large threat which gains from many terrain cards (similar to Ashaya, P/T are based on the number of lands you control).

This Planeswalker fits really well in this deck. One of her abilities causes Forest lands tap for one more G. (Combined with earthbend, so each one yield three G.) Her main ability functions like a form of land animation, putting +1/+1 counters on a land, a useful effect though it doesn't stack with earthbend. The minus ability, however, grants your entire land base indestructible and allows you to draw out all the remaining forests from your library. If you can actually activate this power, it almost certainly game over.

The cub is pretty much essential in any green Avatar deck built around the earthbend mechanic. By including red-green, there’s Bumi Unleashed. It possesses earthbend 4, and if it hits a player to an opponent, all land creatures are ready again and may attack once more. Although this card has become a popular Commander choice, this small creature is definitely going to remain one of the most, maybe the popular pick in the Avatar set.