A standout from the Avatar-themed most adorable collectible cards turns out to be a powerful little powerhouse.

Magic: The Gathering’s collaboration with Avatar isn't set to become widely available before the end of the week, but after early access events this past weekend, an affordable green creature saw a sharp rise in market worth.

From the initial reveals, Badgermole Cub attracted widespread focus. A creature with stats 2/2 priced at G and 1 mana, it includes level 1 earthbending (arguably the best of the elemental mechanics available). Its key advantage with this card comes from an additional effect: Whenever mana is generated by tapping a creature, you gain one extra green mana.

At its cheapest, Badgermole Cub could be purchased below $30. Post-prerelease, however, the going rate jumped to nearly $50 including listings as high as $60. What explains Vivi prices on this adorable card? Mostly thanks to the incredible mana acceleration it enables.

Upon entering play, this creature transforms one land into a creature with earthbend. Alongside its mana-doubling effect, while it stays in play, those lands yields two mana instead of one — in addition to other creatures on your side which tap for mana.

The obvious go-to to combine with is this one-mana elf, a low-cost creature that produces G mana. Yet there are plenty of alternative mana dorks available. This particular druid is a higher-cost choice that’s a 1/3 for two mana in comparison.

Deploying terrain, creatures that tap for mana, plus the cub, you may quickly play a very big high-cost creature into play within a few turns. Momentum builds rapidly with continued aggression from there.

When adding an additional hue with this approach, examples including versatile mana producers work perfectly which produce all five colors. Additionally, this powerful dryad enables playing one extra land every round AND turns every land you control into every basic land type. Another possibility is such as the enchantment A Realm Reborn, at a six-mana investment gives each permanent you control the ability to tap and generate a mana of any type — even each creature you have on the board.

Badgermole Cub may be OP when it comes to boosting mana production, but how do you win with this archetype? An often-seen solution already is Ashaya, Soul of the Wild. Power and toughness are set by the number of lands you control, and it makes all of your nontoken creatures Forests as well as their original types. Essentially, all your creatures on your board is able to generate two green mana if used for mana.

This additional option is another expensive, beefy creature that benefits from lots of lands (as with the previous card, its stats match how many lands you have).

Nissa fits really well as a go-to Planeswalker. Her static effect makes all Forests produce extra green. (Combined with earthbend, that means each one produce triple green.) Her plus ability acts as a proto-earthbend, placing counters on terrain, which is great but it isn't redundant with the cub's ability. The minus ability, on the other hand, grants your entire land base immune to destruction and lets you put onto the battlefield all the remaining forests in the deck. If you can actually activate that ability, it almost certainly game over.

Badgermole Cub is pretty much essential in any decks using green and Avatar focusing on earthbend. If you dip into red and green, you can use this legendary card. This card features earthbend 4, and when damage is dealt to a player, all land creatures are ready again and can attack again. Even though Bumi has emerged as a fan favorite Commander, this small creature is definitely going to remain one of the most, maybe the popular pick from this expansion.