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MTG’s Avatar crossover set will not hit the general market until later this week, but due to prerelease weekends this past weekend, a low-cost green spell saw a sharp rise in price.

Even during previews, this small creature garnered a lot of attention. A 2/2 priced at one green and one colorless mana, the card features the Earthbend 1 ability (arguably the most effective among the four bending abilities in the set). Its key advantage here is an additional effect: Each time you tap a creature for mana, add an additional green mana.

At its cheapest, the card could be purchased at around $27. Post-prerelease, yet, its value escalated above $45 including listings as high as $60. What explains Vivi prices on this adorable card? Primarily because of the explosive mana ramping it enables.

Upon entering play, Badgermole Cub transforms a terrain card so it becomes a creature with earthbend. Alongside its mana-doubling effect, while it is not removed, those lands produces twice the mana — in addition to mana-producing creatures in your control which tap for mana.

The obvious go-to to combine with is the classic Llanowar Elves, a cheap 1/1 which can be tapped for G mana. However many other mana generation creatures out there. This particular druid costs a bit more a 1/3 creature at a two-mana value instead.

Using land cards, creatures that tap for mana, alongside this card, you can easily get a very big and very expensive monster into play within a few turns. The situation escalates exponentially with continued aggression from that point.

If you dip into an additional hue with this approach, cards like versatile mana producers are all great options that generate any color of mana. Another card, a useful enchantment creature enables playing one extra land every round plus transforms all of your lands so they count as all basics. You can also consider for example a card called A Realm Reborn, at a six-mana investment gives all of your permanents the ability to tap and generate one mana of any color — including any creature in play.

The cub might seem overpowered in terms of accelerating your resources, yet what’s the endgame finisher with this archetype? One obvious and popular answer has been Ashaya, Soul of the Wild. Its stats are set by the number of lands you control, plus it turns each creature you own into Forests as well as other subtypes. This means, each creature in play may generate two green mana when tapped.

This additional option provides a high-cost, powerful body that benefits from lots of lands (as with the previous card, P/T match your land total).

Nissa works perfectly in this deck. Her passive ability makes all Forests produce extra green. (Combined with earthbend, that means all earthbend forests produce triple green.) Her main ability is essentially a proto-earthbend, adding counters on terrain, which is great but it isn't redundant with earthbending. Her -8 ability, on the other hand, makes each land you control immune to destruction and lets you draw out every Forest left from your library. Once you trigger that ability, it almost certainly game over.

The cub is nearly mandatory in any decks using green and Avatar focusing on the earthbend mechanic. By including Gruul colors, you can use Bumi. This card features earthbend 4, plus if damage is dealt to an opponent, all land creatures become untapped for another attack. While that version has emerged as a beloved leader, the cub is definitely going to remain one of the most, maybe the desired card in the Avatar set.