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the popular card game’s special Avatar expansion will not hit the general market in the coming days, however due to prerelease weekends over the last few days, an affordable green creature has already exploded in market worth.

Even during previews, this small creature garnered a lot of attention. A creature with stats 2/2 that costs one green and one colorless mana, it has Earthbending 1 (arguably the strongest among the elemental mechanics available). The real boon with this card comes from its second ability: Whenever a creature is tapped to produce mana, add an additional green mana.

At its cheapest, the card was available at around $27. Following the early events, though, the going rate jumped to $49.66 including listings priced at sixty dollars. Why are we seeing such high costs for this cute lil guy? Primarily because of the explosive mana ramping it provides.

As it hits the board, this creature turns a land so it becomes a creature with earthbend. Combined with its other power, while it is not removed, each affected land generates double mana — along with any creatures on your side which tap for mana.

A clear choice for synergy includes Llanowar Elves, a cheap 1/1 which can be tapped for a green resource. But numerous other mana generation creatures in the game. This particular druid is a more expensive alternative that’s a 1/3 for two mana in comparison.

Using land cards, mana-producing creatures, plus the cub, you can easily get a very big and very expensive monster on the board by round three or four. The situation escalates rapidly if you keep the pressure on from that point.

By incorporating an additional hue with this approach, examples including versatile mana producers are excellent picks which produce all five colors. And something like this powerful dryad enables playing one extra land per turn as well as turns every land you control into every basic land type. It's also worth trying something like this six-mana enchantment, costing six mana grants every card you own the capacity to be tapped for one mana of any color — including all creatures under your control.

This card might seem overpowered when it comes to ramping up your mana generation, however what’s the endgame finisher in such a strategy? An often-seen solution already is Ashaya. Its power and toughness are set by your land count, and it makes each creature you own into Forests along with other subtypes. In other words, all your creatures on your board is able to produce double green by tapping.

Harmonious Grovestrider provides a high-cost, powerful body that benefits from a high land count (like Ashaya, its power and toughness are equal to how many lands you have).

Nissa, Who Shakes the World is an excellent fit as a go-to Planeswalker. One of her abilities allows all Forests generate an additional green mana. (Combined with earthbend, so all earthbend forests generate three green mana.) Her plus ability is essentially an early earthbend, putting +1/+1 counters on a land, handy but it isn't redundant with the cub's ability. Her -8 ability, on the other hand, renders each land you control unbreakable and lets you draw out all the remaining forests in your deck. Once you trigger that ability, this typically means the game ends.

This card is pretty much essential for all green-based Avatar strategies that use Earthbending. If you dip into Gruul colors, you can use this legendary card. It possesses earthbend 4, and when damage is dealt to an opponent, all land creatures untap and can attack again. Even though Bumi is a popular Commander choice, this small creature is set to be one of the most, maybe the sought-after card in the Avatar set.