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Magic: The Gathering’s collaboration with Avatar will not hit the general market until later this week, but following prerelease weekends over the last few days, a low-cost green spell has already exploded in value.

Throughout the spoiler season, the earthbending cub attracted widespread focus. A creature with stats 2/2 requiring one green and one colorless mana, Badgermole Cub features Earthbending 1 (arguably the best of the four bending abilities in the set). The major perk with this card comes from an additional effect: Whenever mana is generated by tapping a creature, add an additional green mana.

Initially, this card sold at around $27. Following the early events, though, the market price escalated above $45 and one seller offering for sale at $60.00. The reason for Vivi prices on this adorable card? Mainly thanks to the rapid resource generation it provides.

Upon entering play, the cub turns one land into a creature that has earthbending. And with that second ability, while it remains on the board, every earthbent land produces twice the mana — along with mana-producing creatures on your side that produce resources.

A clear choice for maximum effect is this one-mana elf, an inexpensive 1/1 that taps to generate a green resource. Yet there are plenty of alternative mana dorks in the game. Druid of the Cowl is a higher-cost choice with stats 1/3 costing two mana in comparison.

Using land cards, dorks that generate resources, and Badgermole Cub, you may quickly play a massive high-cost creature on the board early in the game. The situation escalates out of control with continued aggression from that point.

By incorporating an additional hue in this strategy, cards like these mana-fixing creatures work perfectly which produce any mana color. Another card, Dryad of the Ilysian Grove allows you to put another terrain per turn as well as transforms your entire land base into every basic land type. It's also worth trying something like this six-mana enchantment, costing six mana gives each permanent you control the ability to be tapped for any color mana — which covers any creature in play.

The cub might seem overpowered in terms of boosting mana production, yet how do you win with this archetype? A common and powerful choice already is Ashaya. Its stats match the number of lands you control, plus it turns each creature you own Forests in addition to their other types. In other words, all your creatures on your board is able to tap for two G by tapping.

Another creature provides a high-cost, powerful body which gains from lots of lands (like Ashaya, its stats match the number of lands you control).

This Planeswalker is an excellent fit in this deck. Her static effect causes every Forest generate an additional green mana. (Combined with earthbend, this results in all earthbend forests yield three G.) Her main ability acts as a proto-earthbend, placing counters on terrain, handy but does not overlap with earthbend. The minus ability, on the other hand, renders each land you control immune to destruction and allows you to search for your remaining Forests from your library. Once you trigger that ability, it almost certainly you win.

The cub is pretty much essential for all green-based Avatar strategies built around the earthbend mechanic. When branching into red and green, you can use Bumi Unleashed. He has level 4 earthbending, and when he deals combat damage to a player, all land creatures become untapped and may attack once more. While that version has emerged as a popular Commander choice, this small creature is set to be among the top, possibly the popular pick in the Avatar set.