One of Avatar's cutest MTG cards is a formidable compact force.

MTG’s special Avatar expansion won’t get a wider release until later this week, however following pre-releases recently, a low-cost green spell saw a sharp rise in value.

Throughout the spoiler season, the earthbending cub drew widespread focus. A creature with stats 2/2 priced at a single green and one generic mana, it features Earthbending 1 (arguably the most effective within the four bending abilities in the set). Its key advantage with this card is its second ability: Each time you tap a creature for mana, add an additional green mana.

At its cheapest, Badgermole Cub could be purchased for $26.98. Post-prerelease, though, its value escalated to nearly $50 and one seller offering for sale at $60.00. What explains such high costs for this little creature? Mostly because of the incredible mana acceleration it enables.

As it hits play, the cub converts a terrain card to a creature land granting it earthbend. And with that second ability, while it remains on the board, those lands produces twice the mana — plus other creatures in your control that produce resources.

An ideal partner for synergy includes Llanowar Elves, an inexpensive 1/1 which can be tapped for G mana. However many other mana generation creatures available. Another option is a higher-cost choice that’s a 1/3 at a two-mana value as an alternative.

By playing lands, creatures that tap for mana, plus the cub, you may quickly play an enormous pricey threat into play early in the game. The situation escalates exponentially if you keep the pressure on from there.

When adding a secondary color with this approach, cards like these mana-fixing creatures are all great options which produce any mana color. And something like Dryad of the Ilysian Grove enables playing an additional land every round AND turns your entire land base into every basic land type. It's also worth trying for example this six-mana enchantment, costing six mana gives every card you own the power to be tapped for a mana of any type — which covers any creature you have on the board.

This card may be OP in terms of accelerating your resources, but how do you win in such a strategy? An often-seen solution is this legendary creature. Its stats are both equal to how many lands you have, plus it turns all of your nontoken creatures into Forests in addition to other subtypes. In other words, all your creatures on your board can tap for two G when tapped.

This additional option is a costly, large threat that thrives with lots of lands (like Ashaya, P/T are based on the number of lands you control).

Nissa works perfectly as a staple. One of her abilities allows all Forests produce extra green. (If you have the cub, this results in those lands produce triple green.) Her main ability acts as a form of land animation, adding counters to a noncreature land, which is great but it isn't redundant with earthbending. The minus ability, however, renders all of your lands indestructible and lets you put onto the battlefield your remaining Forests in your deck. Once you trigger this power, this typically means game over.

The cub is nearly mandatory in any green-based Avatar strategies that use the earthbend mechanic. If you dip into red-green, there’s Bumi Unleashed. He has earthbend 4, plus if he deals combat damage to an opponent, land creatures become untapped for another attack. While that version has emerged as a fan favorite Commander, this small creature is definitely going to remain one of the most, maybe the popular pick in the collaboration.