One of Avatar's cutest MTG cards is a nasty small contender.
the popular card game’s Avatar crossover set isn't set to get a wider release until later this week, yet due to pre-releases recently, a low-cost green spell saw a sharp rise in value.
Throughout the spoiler season, this small creature drew significant interest. A creature with stats 2/2 priced at a single green and one generic mana, Badgermole Cub features level 1 earthbending (arguably the most effective among the four bending abilities in the set). Its key advantage in its design lies in its second ability: Whenever mana is generated by tapping a creature, it provides bonus green mana.
Initially, the card sold at around $27. Post-prerelease, however, the going rate has shot up to $49.66 and one seller offering priced at sixty dollars. The reason for such high costs for this cute lil guy? Mainly due to the rapid resource generation it provides.
Upon entering the board, this creature transforms a terrain card to a creature land that has earthbending. And with that second ability, while it stays in play, those lands produces twice the mana — plus mana-producing creatures on your side that produce resources.
The obvious go-to for synergy includes the classic Llanowar Elves, an inexpensive 1/1 that produces G mana. Yet many creatures that make mana in the game. Another option is a higher-cost choice that’s a 1/3 at a two-mana value instead.
Using land cards, dorks that generate resources, and Badgermole Cub, you can easily get a massive high-cost threat into play early in the game. The situation escalates rapidly with continued aggression from there.
When adding another color using this method, examples including versatile mana producers are all great options that generate any color of mana. Additionally, Dryad of the Ilysian Grove enables playing another terrain per turn plus turns every land you control providing all land types. Another possibility is for example a card called A Realm Reborn, which for six mana provides all of your permanents the ability to tap and generate one mana of any color — even all creatures in play.
This card might seem overpowered regarding accelerating your resources, yet what closes out the game with this archetype? One obvious and popular answer is Ashaya. Its stats match your land count, and it changes each creature you own to be Forests in addition to their original types. Essentially, all your creatures on your board is able to produce double green if used for mana.
Another creature is a costly, large threat that benefits from lots of lands (as with the previous card, its power and toughness are based on how many lands you have).
Nissa, Who Shakes the World works perfectly as a go-to Planeswalker. Her static effect allows every Forest tap for one more G. (With a Badgermole Cub, this results in all earthbend forests yield three G.) Her plus ability is essentially an early earthbend, putting +1/+1 counters on a land, which is great but it isn't redundant with the cub's ability. The minus ability, on the other hand, renders all of your lands indestructible and allows you to draw out every Forest left in the deck. If you can actually activate that ability, it’s pretty much game over.
The cub is nearly mandatory for all green-based Avatar strategies that use the earthbend mechanic. When branching into red and green, there’s this legendary card. He has earthbend 4, and when damage is dealt to an opponent, land creatures are ready again and can attack again. Although this card has become a popular Commander choice, this small creature is definitely going to remain one of the most, maybe the desired card from this expansion.