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Magic: The Gathering’s special Avatar expansion isn't set to become widely available before the end of the week, yet due to pre-releases this past weekend, one cheap green card saw a sharp rise in price.

From the initial reveals, Badgermole Cub drew widespread focus. A creature with stats 2/2 priced at one green and one colorless mana, the card has Earthbending 1 (arguably the best of the four bending abilities in the set). Its key advantage here is an additional effect: Whenever mana is generated by tapping a creature, it provides bonus green mana.

When first listed, this card could be purchased at around $27. Post-prerelease, however, its value jumped to nearly $50 and one seller offering as high as $60. What explains premium pricing for this cute lil guy? Mainly thanks to the incredible mana acceleration it can produce.

Upon entering the battlefield, the cub turns a land so it becomes a creature granting it earthbend. Combined with its other power, as long as it stays in play, those lands produces twice the mana — along with mana-producing creatures on your side which tap for mana.

The obvious go-to to combine with would be this one-mana elf, a low-cost creature that taps to generate one green mana. However many other mana generation creatures out there. Another option is a higher-cost choice with stats 1/3 at a two-mana value as an alternative.

Using land cards, dorks that generate resources, plus the cub, it's simple to summon a very big high-cost creature on the battlefield within a few turns. And things just keep spiraling out of control by maintaining dominance from that point.

When adding an additional hue with this approach, options such as versatile mana producers are all great options that generate any mana color. Another card, this powerful dryad enables playing one extra land every round as well as makes all of your lands so they count as all basics. Another possibility is for example the enchantment A Realm Reborn, costing six mana grants all of your permanents the power to be tapped for any color mana — which covers any creature in play.

The cub may be OP in terms of boosting mana production, but how do you win with this archetype? One obvious and popular answer has been Ashaya. Power and toughness match your land count, plus it turns your non-token creatures into Forests as well as other subtypes. Essentially, each creature you control can generate two green mana when tapped.

Harmonious Grovestrider is a costly, large threat that benefits from lots of lands (like Ashaya, P/T match your land total).

This Planeswalker fits really well as a go-to Planeswalker. Her static effect makes all Forests tap for one more G. (With a Badgermole Cub, this results in all earthbend forests produce triple green.) Her main ability acts as a proto-earthbend, adding counters on a land, a useful effect but it isn't redundant with the cub's ability. Her ultimate, however, makes all of your lands immune to destruction and allows you to put onto the battlefield all the remaining forests in your deck. Should you manage to use this power, this typically means the game ends.

This card is nearly mandatory for all green-based Avatar strategies focusing on the earthbend mechanic. When branching into red-green, you can use Bumi. He has earthbend 4, plus if he deals combat damage in combat, each animated land untap and may attack once more. Although this card is a popular Commander choice, the cute little Badgermole Cub will surely stay among the top, possibly the popular pick from this expansion.