🔗 Share this article

the popular card game’s collaboration with Avatar isn't set to hit the general market before the end of the week, however after early access events over the last few days, a low-cost green spell saw a sharp rise in value.

From the initial reveals, the earthbending cub attracted significant interest. A creature with stats 2/2 priced at G and 1 mana, Badgermole Cub includes Earthbending 1 (perhaps the best of the elemental mechanics available). Its key advantage with this card lies in an additional effect: Each time you tap a creature for mana, it provides bonus green mana.

Initially, this card was available at around $27. Following the early events, though, the market price jumped above $45 including listings priced at sixty dollars. What explains Vivi prices on this adorable card? Primarily because of the incredible mana acceleration it enables.

When it arrives the battlefield, Badgermole Cub converts one land so it becomes a creature granting it earthbend. Combined with its other power, while it remains on the board, those lands generates double mana — along with any creatures you have that produce resources.

A clear choice for synergy would be this one-mana elf, a low-cost creature that produces G mana. However numerous alternative mana dorks out there. Druid of the Cowl is a higher-cost choice with stats 1/3 at a two-mana value instead.

Using land cards, creatures that tap for mana, alongside this card, it's simple to summon an enormous pricey creature into play within a few turns. And things just keep spiraling exponentially with continued aggression from there.

By incorporating a secondary color using this method, examples including Fuel Tank Feaster, Ilysian Caryatid, and Paradise Druid work perfectly which produce any mana color. Another card, Dryad of the Ilysian Grove lets you play another terrain per turn plus makes your entire land base providing all land types. Another possibility is such as a card called A Realm Reborn, at a six-mana investment provides all of your permanents the ability to tap and generate one mana of any color — which covers all creatures under your control.

The cub may be OP in terms of ramping up your mana generation, but how do you win for a deck like this? One obvious and popular answer already is this legendary creature. Its power and toughness match the number of lands you control, and it changes your non-token creatures to be Forests along with other subtypes. This means, each creature on your board can tap for two G by tapping.

Another creature is a costly, large threat which gains from lots of lands (as with the previous card, its stats match the number of lands you control).

This Planeswalker fits really well in this deck. Her passive ability causes Forest lands generate an additional green mana. (If you have the cub, that means each one yield three G.) One loyalty ability acts as a proto-earthbend, putting +1/+1 counters to a noncreature land, a useful effect but it isn't redundant with earthbending. The minus ability, though, grants each land you control indestructible and lets you put onto the battlefield every Forest left in the deck. Should you manage to use the ultimate, it’s pretty much you win.

This card is nearly mandatory for any kind of green-based Avatar strategies that use the earthbend mechanic. When branching into red and green, consider this legendary card. This card features level 4 earthbending, and when he deals combat damage to an opponent, all land creatures are ready again and may attack once more. While that version has become a fan favorite Commander, the cute little Badgermole Cub is set to be one of the most, maybe the sought-after card in the Avatar set.