🔗 Share this article

Magic: The Gathering’s special Avatar expansion won’t hit the general market before the end of the week, however due to pre-releases recently, an affordable green creature has already exploded in market worth.

Even during previews, the earthbending cub drew a lot of attention. A creature with stats 2/2 requiring G and 1 mana, it features Earthbending 1 (arguably the most effective among the set’s four “bending” mechanics). Its key advantage here comes from another power: Whenever a creature is tapped to produce mana, it provides bonus green mana.

At its cheapest, the card sold for $26.98. After the pre-release weekend, yet, the market price escalated to nearly $50 including listings priced at sixty dollars. What explains premium pricing for this little creature? Primarily due to the incredible mana acceleration it can produce.

As it hits the board, the cub converts a terrain card so it becomes a creature that has earthbending. Alongside its mana-doubling effect, as long as it is not removed, those lands produces twice the mana — along with mana-producing creatures in your control which tap for mana.

A clear choice for synergy includes this one-mana elf, a low-cost creature that taps to generate one green mana. Yet numerous other mana generation creatures in the game. Druid of the Cowl is a higher-cost choice a 1/3 creature at a two-mana value instead.

Using land cards, dorks that generate resources, plus the cub, you may quickly play an enormous pricey creature on the board by round three or four. And things just keep spiraling exponentially by maintaining dominance from there.

By incorporating a secondary color using this method, examples including Fuel Tank Feaster, Ilysian Caryatid, and Paradise Druid are excellent picks that generate any mana color. And something like a useful enchantment creature allows you to put one extra land each turn AND makes your entire land base providing all land types. Another possibility is something like the enchantment A Realm Reborn, which for six mana gives every card you own the power to be tapped for any color mana — which covers each creature under your control.

Badgermole Cub might seem overpowered in terms of ramping up your mana generation, yet how do you win for a deck like this? A common and powerful choice already is this legendary creature. Its stats are both equal to your land count, and it changes all of your nontoken creatures into Forests along with their original types. This means, all your creatures in play is able to tap for two G by tapping.

Another creature is another expensive, beefy creature which gains from many terrain cards (similar to Ashaya, its power and toughness are equal to how many lands you have).

Nissa, Who Shakes the World fits really well as a go-to Planeswalker. Her passive ability causes all Forests produce extra green. (If you have the cub, so all earthbend forests produce triple green.) Her main ability acts as a form of land animation, putting +1/+1 counters on a land, a useful effect but it isn't redundant with earthbending. The minus ability, however, makes all of your lands indestructible and lets you put onto the battlefield every Forest left in your deck. Once you trigger the ultimate, it’s pretty much you win.

Badgermole Cub is pretty much essential for all green-based Avatar strategies built around Earthbending. When branching into Gruul colors, you can use this legendary card. This card features level 4 earthbending, plus if it hits a player to an opponent, each animated land are ready again for another attack. While that version is a beloved leader, the cute little Badgermole Cub is set to be among the top, possibly the desired card in the collaboration.