One of Avatar's most adorable collectible cards proves to be a formidable little contender.
Magic: The Gathering’s collaboration with Avatar isn't set to become widely available before the end of the week, yet due to prerelease weekends this past weekend, one cheap green card has already exploded in price.
Throughout the spoiler season, this small creature attracted significant interest. This two-power, two-toughness that costs one green and one colorless mana, it includes the Earthbend 1 ability (possibly the strongest among the elemental mechanics available). Its key advantage with this card is its second ability: Whenever you tap a creature for mana, add an additional green mana.
At its cheapest, the card was available below $30. Following the early events, though, the market price jumped to nearly $50 and one seller offering priced at sixty dollars. What explains such high costs on this adorable card? Primarily thanks to the rapid resource generation it provides.
As it hits the battlefield, this creature turns one land so it becomes a creature that has earthbending. And with that second ability, while it stays in play, every earthbent land produces twice the mana — along with any creatures in your control that generate mana.
A clear choice for synergy is this one-mana elf, a cheap 1/1 which can be tapped for G mana. However many creatures that make mana available. Druid of the Cowl is a more expensive alternative that’s a 1/3 at a two-mana value instead.
By playing lands, dorks that generate resources, and Badgermole Cub, you may quickly play a very big and very expensive monster on the board by round three or four. The situation escalates out of control if you keep the pressure on from there.
By incorporating a secondary color with this approach, examples including Fuel Tank Feaster, Ilysian Caryatid, and Paradise Druid work perfectly which produce all five colors. Additionally, a useful enchantment creature lets you play one extra land each turn plus turns your entire land base into every basic land type. It's also worth trying for example this six-mana enchantment, which for six mana gives every card you own the power to tap and generate a mana of any type — even any creature you have on the board.
This card may be OP when it comes to accelerating your resources, however what’s the endgame finisher with this archetype? An often-seen solution is Ashaya, Soul of the Wild. Its stats are both equal to the number of lands you control, and it makes each creature you own to be Forests along with their original types. In other words, each creature you control can tap for two G when tapped.
Another creature is another expensive, beefy creature that benefits from many terrain cards (similar to Ashaya, its power and toughness are equal to how many lands you have).
This Planeswalker works perfectly in this deck. Her passive ability allows all Forests produce extra green. (Combined with earthbend, so each one produce triple green.) Her main ability functions like a proto-earthbend, adding counters on a land, handy but does not overlap with the cub's ability. The minus ability, on the other hand, renders all of your lands unbreakable and allows you to put onto the battlefield every Forest left from your library. Once you trigger that ability, it’s pretty much the game ends.
This card is nearly mandatory in any decks using green and Avatar that use Earthbending. When branching into red-green, you can use this legendary card. This card features earthbend 4, and when it hits a player in combat, all land creatures are ready again for another attack. While that version has become a beloved leader, the cute little Badgermole Cub is set to be one of the most, maybe the sought-after card in the collaboration.