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Magic: The Gathering’s special Avatar expansion won’t become widely available until later this week, but after prerelease weekends recently, a low-cost green spell saw a sharp rise in price.

Throughout the spoiler season, this small creature attracted a lot of attention. A creature with stats 2/2 that costs a single green and one generic mana, the card includes the Earthbend 1 ability (possibly the most effective of the set’s four “bending” mechanics). Its key advantage in its design is another power: Each time you tap a creature for mana, you gain one extra green mana.

Initially, the card sold below $30. Following the early events, though, its value jumped to nearly $50 with at least one listed for sale at $60.00. Why are we seeing Vivi prices for this cute lil guy? Primarily thanks to the incredible mana acceleration it can produce.

Upon entering the board, Badgermole Cub turns a terrain card so it becomes a creature granting it earthbend. And with that second ability, as long as it remains on the board, each affected land produces twice the mana — plus other creatures on your side that produce resources.

A clear choice for synergy is this one-mana elf, an inexpensive 1/1 that produces a green resource. However numerous alternative mana dorks available. This particular druid is a higher-cost choice that’s a 1/3 for two mana as an alternative.

Deploying terrain, dorks that generate resources, alongside this card, it's simple to summon a massive high-cost threat into play early in the game. Momentum builds rapidly with continued aggression from that point.

If you dip into a secondary color with this approach, examples including these mana-fixing creatures are excellent picks which produce all five colors. And something like this powerful dryad allows you to put an additional land per turn AND makes your entire land base providing all land types. You can also consider something like a card called A Realm Reborn, at a six-mana investment gives every card you own the power to be tapped for a mana of any type — even each creature in play.

Badgermole Cub might seem overpowered regarding ramping up your mana generation, however how do you win in such a strategy? An often-seen solution has been Ashaya. Power and toughness are set by your land count, plus it turns your non-token creatures into Forests along with other subtypes. Essentially, each creature in play may tap for two G by tapping.

Another creature is a costly, large threat that thrives with many terrain cards (similar to Ashaya, its stats are equal to your land total).

This Planeswalker is an excellent fit as a staple. One of her abilities causes Forest lands tap for one more G. (With a Badgermole Cub, so each one produce triple green.) Her main ability functions like a form of land animation, putting +1/+1 counters on terrain, a useful effect but does not overlap with the cub's ability. The minus ability, though, grants each land you control unbreakable and allows you to draw out your remaining Forests in the deck. If you can actually activate the ultimate, it almost certainly the game ends.

Badgermole Cub is nearly mandatory in any green Avatar deck that use Earthbending. By including red and green, there’s Bumi Unleashed. This card features earthbend 4, and when damage is dealt to a player, all land creatures are ready again and may attack once more. Even though Bumi has emerged as a popular Commander choice, the cub is definitely going to remain one of the most, maybe the desired card in the collaboration.