🔗 Share this article

Magic: The Gathering’s collaboration with Avatar isn't set to hit the general market until later this week, but after prerelease weekends recently, one cheap green card has already exploded in market worth.

Even during previews, the earthbending cub attracted significant interest. A 2/2 that costs a single green and one generic mana, Badgermole Cub features the Earthbend 1 ability (perhaps the most effective within the elemental mechanics available). Its key advantage with this card lies in another power: Each time you tap a creature for mana, add an additional green mana.

At its cheapest, the card could be purchased at around $27. Post-prerelease, however, the market price escalated to nearly $50 and one seller offering for sale at $60.00. What explains such high costs for this cute lil guy? Primarily thanks to the incredible mana acceleration it can produce.

When it arrives the board, the cub converts a land so it becomes a creature with earthbend. Alongside its mana-doubling effect, while it remains on the board, every earthbent land produces twice the mana — along with any creatures you have that generate mana.

An ideal partner to combine with includes this one-mana elf, a cheap 1/1 which can be tapped for a green resource. But numerous creatures that make mana in the game. This particular druid is a more expensive alternative that’s a 1/3 for two mana instead.

Using land cards, mana-producing creatures, and Badgermole Cub, you may quickly play an enormous high-cost threat into play early in the game. And things just keep spiraling out of control with continued aggression from there.

If you dip into a secondary color in this strategy, options such as these mana-fixing creatures are all great options that generate any color of mana. Another card, Dryad of the Ilysian Grove lets you play one extra land each turn as well as transforms every land you control so they count as all basics. Another possibility is something like a card called A Realm Reborn, costing six mana grants each permanent you control the power to tap and generate one mana of any color — which covers each creature you have on the board.

The cub may be OP when it comes to boosting mana production, yet what closes out the game with this archetype? One obvious and popular answer already is Ashaya, Soul of the Wild. Power and toughness are set by the number of lands you control, and it makes each creature you own into Forests as well as other subtypes. This means, all your creatures you control may produce double green by tapping.

This additional option is another expensive, beefy creature which gains from a high land count (as with the previous card, its power and toughness are equal to your land total).

Nissa, Who Shakes the World fits really well as a staple. One of her abilities makes all Forests tap for one more G. (If you have the cub, this results in those lands yield three G.) One loyalty ability is essentially an early earthbend, putting +1/+1 counters on terrain, handy though it doesn't stack with the cub's ability. Her ultimate, on the other hand, grants your entire land base indestructible enabling you to put onto the battlefield every Forest left in the deck. If you can actually activate this power, this typically means game over.

Badgermole Cub is pretty much essential for any kind of decks using green and Avatar that use Earthbending. When branching into Gruul colors, consider this legendary card. It possesses earthbend 4, and when damage is dealt to a player, all land creatures untap for another attack. While that version has emerged as a popular Commander choice, the cub will surely stay one of the most, maybe the desired card in the collaboration.