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Magic: The Gathering’s Avatar crossover set won’t become widely available in the coming days, but after prerelease weekends this past weekend, a low-cost green spell experienced a surge in price.

From the initial reveals, Badgermole Cub drew widespread focus. A creature with stats 2/2 that costs a single green and one generic mana, it includes the Earthbend 1 ability (arguably the best of the four bending abilities in the set). The real boon here is its second ability: If you tap a creature for mana, it provides bonus green mana.

Initially, Badgermole Cub sold below $30. Following the early events, however, its value escalated to nearly $50 and one seller offering priced at sixty dollars. Why are we seeing premium pricing for this little creature? Primarily because of the explosive mana ramping it enables.

When it arrives the battlefield, the cub turns a terrain card into a creature that has earthbending. And with that second ability, while it stays in play, those lands generates double mana — in addition to other creatures you have which tap for mana.

An ideal partner to combine with would be this one-mana elf, an inexpensive 1/1 that produces G mana. But numerous alternative mana dorks out there. Another option is a higher-cost choice that’s a 1/3 at a two-mana value instead.

By playing lands, mana-producing creatures, and Badgermole Cub, you can easily get a very big and very expensive threat into play early in the game. And things just keep spiraling exponentially by maintaining dominance after that.

By incorporating another color in this strategy, examples including these mana-fixing creatures are all great options that generate any color of mana. Another card, Dryad of the Ilysian Grove lets you play another terrain per turn as well as turns all of your lands providing all land types. Another possibility is such as a card called A Realm Reborn, which for six mana provides all of your permanents the ability to be tapped for any color mana — even all creatures you have on the board.

This card could be too strong in terms of ramping up your mana generation, but what’s the endgame finisher in such a strategy? A common and powerful choice has been Ashaya, Soul of the Wild. Its stats are set by your land count, plus it turns all of your nontoken creatures into Forests along with their other types. In other words, each creature on your board can generate two green mana if used for mana.

Another creature is another expensive, beefy creature that benefits from lots of lands (as with the previous card, P/T are based on your land total).

Nissa works perfectly as a staple. One of her abilities causes all Forests produce extra green. (With a Badgermole Cub, that means each one produce triple green.) Her plus ability acts as an early earthbend, putting +1/+1 counters to a noncreature land, which is great but does not overlap with earthbend. Her -8 ability, however, renders each land you control indestructible and lets you draw out all the remaining forests from your library. If you can actually activate the ultimate, it’s pretty much you win.

Badgermole Cub is pretty much essential for all green Avatar deck focusing on Earthbending. When branching into red and green, there’s Bumi Unleashed. He has earthbend 4, and when it hits a player to an opponent, land creatures are ready again and can attack again. Even though Bumi has become a popular Commander choice, this small creature is set to be one of, if not the most desired card in the Avatar set.