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Magic: The Gathering’s special Avatar expansion isn't set to get a wider release in the coming days, yet following pre-releases recently, an affordable green creature has already exploded in price.

Even during previews, Badgermole Cub garnered a lot of attention. A creature with stats 2/2 priced at one green and one colorless mana, Badgermole Cub features the Earthbend 1 ability (possibly the strongest among the four bending abilities in the set). Its key advantage here lies in an additional effect: If you tap a creature for mana, you gain one extra green mana.

At its cheapest, Badgermole Cub sold below $30. After the pre-release weekend, yet, the going rate escalated to nearly $50 with at least one listed priced at sixty dollars. The reason for premium pricing on this adorable card? Primarily because of the rapid resource generation it provides.

When it arrives play, this creature transforms one land so it becomes a creature that has earthbending. Combined with its other power, as long as it stays in play, every earthbent land generates double mana — in addition to other creatures in your control that generate mana.

The obvious go-to for maximum effect would be Llanowar Elves, an inexpensive 1/1 that taps to generate a green resource. But numerous other mana generation creatures in the game. This particular druid is a higher-cost choice with stats 1/3 for two mana as an alternative.

Deploying terrain, mana-producing creatures, plus the cub, it's simple to summon an enormous high-cost creature on the battlefield early in the game. Momentum builds rapidly by maintaining dominance from that point.

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 AND turns every land you control into every basic land type. You can also consider for example a card called A Realm Reborn, at a six-mana investment gives each permanent you control the capacity to tap and generate one mana of any color — even each creature in play.

The cub might seem overpowered when it comes to boosting mana production, but what closes out the game for a deck like this? One obvious and popular answer is Ashaya, Soul of the Wild. Its stats are both equal to the number of lands you control, and it makes your non-token creatures into Forests along with other subtypes. In other words, every single creature on your board is able to generate two green mana when tapped.

Another creature is another expensive, beefy creature which gains from a high land count (similar to Ashaya, its power and toughness are equal to the number of lands you control).

Nissa fits really well as a staple. Her passive ability allows Forest lands produce extra green. (Combined with earthbend, this results in all earthbend forests yield three G.) Her plus ability acts as an early earthbend, adding counters to a noncreature land, a useful effect though it doesn't stack with the cub's ability. Her ultimate, however, renders each land you control immune to destruction and allows you to search for every Forest left from your library. If you can actually activate that ability, it’s pretty much the game ends.

The cub is nearly mandatory in any green-based Avatar strategies built around the earthbend mechanic. If you dip into Gruul colors, there’s Bumi. He has earthbend 4, and when he deals combat damage to a player, all land creatures become untapped and can attack again. While that version has emerged as a popular Commander choice, the cub is definitely going to remain among the top, possibly the desired card in the Avatar set.