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Magic: The Gathering’s collaboration with Avatar isn't set to become widely available until later this week, yet due to pre-releases recently, one cheap green card has already exploded in market worth.

Even during previews, the earthbending cub drew significant interest. A 2/2 that costs a single green and one generic mana, Badgermole Cub features Earthbending 1 (possibly the strongest among the elemental mechanics available). Its key advantage with this card comes from its second ability: Whenever mana is generated by tapping a creature, you gain one extra green mana.

At its cheapest, Badgermole Cub was available at around $27. After the pre-release weekend, though, the going rate has shot up above $45 including listings as high as $60. Why are we seeing premium pricing for this little creature? Primarily because of the rapid resource generation it provides.

Upon entering the board, this creature converts a terrain card to a creature land granting it earthbend. Combined with its other power, while it stays in play, those lands produces twice the mana — plus other creatures on your side that generate mana.

A clear choice for maximum effect is this one-mana elf, a low-cost creature that produces G mana. But many alternative mana dorks available. Druid of the Cowl costs a bit more a 1/3 creature for two mana in comparison.

By playing lands, mana-producing creatures, alongside this card, it's simple to summon a very big high-cost monster on the battlefield by round three or four. The situation escalates rapidly with continued aggression from that point.

When adding a secondary color with this approach, cards like these mana-fixing creatures work perfectly which produce any mana color. And something like Dryad of the Ilysian Grove allows you to put one extra land each turn plus turns all of your lands into every basic land type. It's also worth trying for example a card called A Realm Reborn, at a six-mana investment provides every card you own the capacity to be tapped for one mana of any color — even each creature you have on the board.

The cub may be OP in terms of ramping up your mana generation, however how do you win in such a strategy? An often-seen solution has been this legendary creature. Its power and toughness are set by your land count, plus it turns your non-token creatures into Forests in addition to other subtypes. This means, each creature in play can generate two green mana when tapped.

Harmonious Grovestrider is a costly, large threat that benefits from lots of lands (as with the previous card, P/T are equal to the number of lands you control).

This Planeswalker works perfectly in this deck. One of her abilities causes Forest lands produce extra green. (If you have the cub, this results in those lands produce triple green.) Her plus ability acts as a proto-earthbend, placing counters on a land, which is great though it doesn't stack with earthbend. Her ultimate, though, makes each land you control indestructible enabling you to put onto the battlefield all the remaining forests in the deck. Once you trigger the ultimate, this typically means game over.

The cub is a must-have in any green-based Avatar strategies that use the earthbend mechanic. By including red-green, consider Bumi Unleashed. This card features level 4 earthbending, and if he deals combat damage in combat, each animated land are ready again and can attack again. While that version is a popular Commander choice, the cub is definitely going to remain one of the most, maybe the sought-after card from this expansion.