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MTG’s special Avatar expansion won’t get a wider release until later this week, but following prerelease weekends recently, one cheap green card saw a sharp rise in value.

From the initial reveals, the earthbending cub attracted significant interest. This two-power, two-toughness that costs one green and one colorless mana, Badgermole Cub includes Earthbending 1 (possibly the most effective among the elemental mechanics available). The major perk with this card is its second ability: If you tap a creature for mana, you gain one extra green mana.

At its cheapest, Badgermole Cub sold at around $27. After the pre-release weekend, however, the market price has shot up to nearly $50 and one seller offering priced at sixty dollars. What explains premium pricing on this adorable card? Primarily because of the explosive mana ramping it provides.

When it arrives the board, the cub transforms a terrain card so it becomes a creature granting it earthbend. Combined with its other power, as long as it stays in play, those lands yields two mana instead of one — along with other creatures you have which tap for mana.

An ideal partner for maximum effect includes Llanowar Elves, a low-cost creature that produces G mana. Yet numerous alternative mana dorks in the game. This particular druid is a more expensive alternative with stats 1/3 costing two mana as an alternative.

Deploying terrain, creatures that tap for mana, plus the cub, you may quickly play a very big high-cost monster into play early in the game. The situation escalates out of control if you keep the pressure on after that.

By incorporating a secondary color in this strategy, examples including versatile mana producers work perfectly that can make any color of mana. Another card, a useful enchantment creature allows you to put another terrain every round plus transforms all of your lands into every basic land type. It's also worth trying something like the enchantment A Realm Reborn, costing six mana gives every card you own the ability to produce a mana of any type — including each creature under your control.

This card might seem overpowered in terms of ramping up your mana generation, however what’s the endgame finisher in such a strategy? An often-seen solution has been Ashaya. Its power and toughness are set by the number of lands you control, and it makes your non-token creatures Forests in addition to other subtypes. In other words, all your creatures in play is able to generate two green mana when tapped.

Harmonious Grovestrider is another expensive, beefy creature that benefits from many terrain cards (similar to Ashaya, its stats are based on how many lands you have).

Nissa fits really well as a go-to Planeswalker. One of her abilities causes every Forest generate an additional green mana. (With a Badgermole Cub, this results in those lands generate three green mana.) Her main ability is essentially a proto-earthbend, placing counters on a land, which is great but it isn't redundant with earthbending. Her -8 ability, on the other hand, grants each land you control unbreakable and allows you to put onto the battlefield all the remaining forests from your library. Once you trigger this power, it’s pretty much the game ends.

Badgermole Cub is pretty much essential for any kind of green Avatar deck built around Earthbending. By including red-green, there’s Bumi Unleashed. He has level 4 earthbending, and if it hits a player to an opponent, each animated land untap and may attack once more. Even though Bumi is a fan favorite Commander, the cub is set to be one of, if not the most popular pick from this expansion.