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MTG’s special Avatar expansion will not get a wider release until later this week, but due to pre-releases over the last few days, one cheap green card has already exploded in market worth.

Throughout the spoiler season, this small creature garnered a lot of attention. A 2/2 requiring a single green and one generic mana, it has the Earthbend 1 ability (arguably the strongest within the elemental mechanics available). Its key advantage in its design comes from another power: Each time you tap a creature for mana, you gain one extra green mana.

At its cheapest, this card was available at around $27. After the pre-release weekend, however, its value jumped to nearly $50 and one seller offering priced at sixty dollars. What explains Vivi prices on this adorable card? Mainly due to the explosive mana ramping it enables.

As it hits the battlefield, the cub converts a land into a creature granting it earthbend. Alongside its mana-doubling effect, while it is not removed, each affected land produces twice the mana — plus mana-producing creatures you have which tap for mana.

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

Deploying terrain, mana-producing creatures, and Badgermole Cub, it's simple to summon an enormous and very expensive monster on the board within a few turns. And things just keep spiraling exponentially with continued aggression from that point.

By incorporating an additional hue using this method, options such as these mana-fixing creatures work perfectly that generate any color of mana. And something like this powerful dryad enables playing one extra land every round AND makes all of your lands into every basic land type. You can also consider such as the enchantment A Realm Reborn, which for six mana grants all of your permanents the ability to produce one mana of any color — which covers each creature you have on the board.

This card could be too strong regarding accelerating your resources, but what’s the endgame finisher in such a strategy? One obvious and popular answer has been Ashaya, Soul of the Wild. Power and toughness are set by your land count, and it makes your non-token creatures Forests in addition to their original types. Essentially, every single creature on your board can tap for two G when tapped.

Another creature is another expensive, beefy creature that thrives with lots of lands (like Ashaya, P/T match the number of lands you control).

Nissa works perfectly as a go-to Planeswalker. One of her abilities makes all Forests tap for one more G. (With a Badgermole Cub, that means those lands yield three G.) One loyalty ability is essentially a proto-earthbend, adding counters on terrain, a useful effect but it isn't redundant with the cub's ability. Her ultimate, though, grants all of your lands indestructible and lets you draw out all the remaining forests from your library. If you can actually activate this power, it almost certainly you win.

The cub is pretty much essential in any green Avatar deck focusing on Earthbending. By including red-green, you can use this legendary card. It possesses earthbend 4, and if it hits a player to a player, all land creatures untap for another attack. Even though Bumi is a beloved leader, the cub is set to be one of the most, maybe the sought-after card in the collaboration.