🔗 Share this article

Magic: The Gathering’s special Avatar expansion will not hit the general market before the end of the week, however following pre-releases this past weekend, one cheap green card saw a sharp rise in price.

From the initial reveals, the earthbending cub attracted significant interest. A 2/2 that costs G and 1 mana, Badgermole Cub has level 1 earthbending (perhaps the strongest of the set’s four “bending” mechanics). The major perk with this card lies in an additional effect: Each time a creature is tapped to produce mana, add an additional green mana.

Initially, Badgermole Cub could be purchased for $26.98. Post-prerelease, however, its value jumped to nearly $50 with at least one listed for sale at $60.00. The reason for premium pricing for this little creature? Mostly due to the explosive mana ramping it enables.

Upon entering the board, Badgermole Cub transforms a land to a creature land granting it earthbend. Combined with its other power, while it remains on the board, every earthbent land yields two mana instead of one — along with any creatures in your control that generate mana.

An ideal partner for synergy includes Llanowar Elves, a cheap 1/1 that taps to generate one green mana. However many other mana generation creatures in the game. This particular druid is a more expensive alternative that’s a 1/3 costing two mana as an alternative.

Deploying terrain, dorks that generate resources, alongside this card, you may quickly play a very big and very expensive creature on the board by round three or four. And things just keep spiraling rapidly with continued aggression from that point.

If you dip into an additional hue in this strategy, options such as versatile mana producers work perfectly which produce any color of mana. And something like this powerful dryad lets you play another terrain every round plus transforms every land you control into every basic land type. You can also consider something like the enchantment A Realm Reborn, which for six mana provides all of your permanents the ability to tap and generate any color mana — which covers any creature you have on the board.

This card might seem overpowered when it comes to ramping up your mana generation, but how do you win in such a strategy? An often-seen solution already is Ashaya, Soul of the Wild. Its power and toughness are set by your land count, and it makes all of your nontoken creatures into Forests as well as their original types. Essentially, every single creature in play can tap for two G by tapping.

Harmonious Grovestrider is a costly, large threat that thrives with lots of lands (as with the previous card, P/T are based on the number of lands you control).

Nissa, Who Shakes the World fits really well in this deck. One of her abilities makes every Forest tap for one more G. (If you have the cub, this results in all earthbend forests generate three green mana.) Her plus ability acts as a proto-earthbend, adding counters on a land, handy though it doesn't stack with earthbend. Her ultimate, though, renders your entire land base unbreakable and lets you put onto the battlefield your remaining Forests in the deck. Once you trigger the ultimate, this typically means you win.

Badgermole Cub is pretty much essential for any kind of decks using green and Avatar built around the earthbend mechanic. By including Gruul colors, you can use Bumi Unleashed. This card features earthbend 4, and if he deals combat damage to a player, land creatures are ready again for another attack. While that version has emerged as a fan favorite Commander, the cub will surely stay among the top, possibly the popular pick in the Avatar set.