Among the Avatar-themed cutest MTG cards proves to be a powerful small force.
MTG’s collaboration with Avatar won’t become widely available before the end of the week, yet following early access events over the last few days, a low-cost green spell experienced a surge in price.
From the initial reveals, Badgermole Cub attracted widespread focus. A creature with stats 2/2 priced at a single green and one generic mana, it features Earthbending 1 (perhaps the most effective among the four bending abilities in the set). Its key advantage in its design comes from its second ability: If you tap a creature for mana, add an additional green mana.
At its cheapest, this card was available at around $27. Following the early events, however, the market price escalated above $45 and one seller offering as high as $60. Why are we seeing Vivi prices for this cute lil guy? Mainly due to the rapid resource generation it can produce.
Upon entering play, this creature turns a land to a creature land granting it earthbend. And with that second ability, as long as it remains on the board, each affected land generates double mana — along with mana-producing creatures you have that produce resources.
A clear choice to combine with would be Llanowar Elves, a cheap 1/1 which can be tapped for G mana. Yet many other mana generation creatures out there. Another option is a higher-cost choice that’s a 1/3 at a two-mana value as an alternative.
Using land cards, creatures that tap for mana, alongside this card, you may quickly play an enormous pricey monster on the battlefield early in the game. The situation escalates rapidly if you keep the pressure on after that.
If you dip into an additional hue with this approach, options such as these mana-fixing creatures work perfectly which produce any color of mana. Additionally, a useful enchantment creature lets you play an additional land each turn as well as makes all of your lands into every basic land type. Another possibility is something like a card called A Realm Reborn, which for six mana provides all of your permanents the power to produce any color mana — which covers each creature you have on the board.
This card could be too strong when it comes to accelerating your resources, yet what closes out the game for a deck like this? One obvious and popular answer has been Ashaya. Its power and toughness are both equal to how many lands you have, plus it turns each creature you own Forests as well as their original types. In other words, each creature in play is able to produce double green if used for mana.
Harmonious Grovestrider is a costly, large threat that thrives with many terrain cards (as with the previous card, its stats match how many lands you have).
This Planeswalker is an excellent fit in this deck. Her passive ability causes all Forests produce extra green. (Combined with earthbend, this results in all earthbend forests yield three G.) Her main ability functions like an early earthbend, placing counters on terrain, which is great but does not overlap with earthbending. Her ultimate, though, makes each land you control indestructible and lets you put onto the battlefield all the remaining forests in your deck. Should you manage to use that ability, it almost certainly you win.
This card is pretty much essential for all decks using green and Avatar focusing on the earthbend mechanic. When branching into red-green, there’s Bumi. This card features earthbend 4, and if damage is dealt to a player, all land creatures are ready again and can attack again. Although this card has become a popular Commander choice, the cub will surely stay one of the most, maybe the sought-after card in the collaboration.