🔗 Share this article

Magic: The Gathering’s special Avatar expansion won’t get a wider release in the coming days, but following early access events recently, an affordable green creature experienced a surge in market worth.

From the initial reveals, this small creature garnered a lot of attention. A 2/2 that costs one green and one colorless mana, Badgermole Cub has Earthbending 1 (possibly the strongest within the elemental mechanics available). The real boon with this card lies in an additional effect: If you tap a creature for mana, you gain one extra green mana.

Initially, Badgermole Cub sold below $30. After the pre-release weekend, however, the going rate has shot up to $49.66 and one seller offering for sale at $60.00. Why are we seeing such high costs for this little creature? Mostly due to the incredible mana acceleration it provides.

As it hits the board, Badgermole Cub transforms one land into a creature that has earthbending. Combined with its other power, as long as it remains on the board, each affected land produces twice the mana — along with other creatures in your control which tap for mana.

The obvious go-to for synergy is the classic Llanowar Elves, a cheap 1/1 which can be tapped for G mana. However many other mana generation creatures available. Druid of the Cowl is a higher-cost choice with stats 1/3 for two mana in comparison.

By playing lands, mana-producing creatures, alongside this card, you may quickly play an enormous and very expensive threat on the board within a few turns. And things just keep spiraling exponentially by maintaining dominance after that.

When adding another color with this approach, options such as versatile mana producers are all great options that generate any color of mana. And something like a useful enchantment creature allows you to put an additional land each turn as well as turns your entire land base so they count as all basics. You can also consider something like the enchantment A Realm Reborn, costing six mana grants each permanent you control the power to be tapped for one mana of any color — which covers all creatures you have on the board.

Badgermole Cub could be too strong when it comes to ramping up your mana generation, yet what’s the endgame finisher in such a strategy? One obvious and popular answer already is Ashaya, Soul of the Wild. Its stats match the number of lands you control, and it changes each creature you own into Forests as well as other subtypes. In other words, all your creatures you control may generate two green mana by tapping.

Harmonious Grovestrider is another expensive, beefy creature that benefits from a high land count (as with the previous card, its stats are equal to the number of lands you control).

This Planeswalker works perfectly in this deck. Her static effect causes Forest lands generate an additional green mana. (Combined with earthbend, that means those lands generate three green mana.) Her main ability is essentially a proto-earthbend, adding counters to a noncreature land, a useful effect but does not overlap with earthbending. The minus ability, however, grants all of your lands unbreakable and lets you search for your remaining Forests from your library. Should you manage to use the ultimate, it almost certainly game over.

The cub is pretty much essential in any decks using green and Avatar that use earthbend. If you dip into Gruul colors, you can use Bumi. It possesses level 4 earthbending, and if he deals combat damage to an opponent, all land creatures untap for another attack. While that version is a beloved leader, the cute little Badgermole Cub is definitely going to remain among the top, possibly the sought-after card in the Avatar set.