A standout from Avatar's cutest MTG cards turns out to be a nasty compact force.
MTG’s collaboration with Avatar will not get a wider release in the coming days, yet after early access events recently, a low-cost green spell has already exploded in price.
From the initial reveals, Badgermole Cub drew a lot of attention. A creature with stats 2/2 requiring G and 1 mana, it features the Earthbend 1 ability (possibly the strongest within the set’s four “bending” mechanics). The real boon with this card comes from another power: If a creature is tapped to produce mana, you gain one extra green mana.
At its cheapest, the card was available at around $27. After the pre-release weekend, however, the market price jumped to nearly $50 including listings as high as $60. The reason for such high costs for this little creature? Mostly because of the incredible mana acceleration it provides.
Upon entering play, the cub transforms a terrain card to a creature land with earthbend. Combined with its other power, while it stays in play, each affected land generates double mana — along with mana-producing creatures on your side which tap for mana.
The obvious go-to to combine with is this one-mana elf, a low-cost creature that produces G mana. However there are plenty of alternative mana dorks in the game. Druid of the Cowl is a more expensive alternative a 1/3 creature at a two-mana value in comparison.
By playing lands, dorks that generate resources, alongside this card, you may quickly play a very big pricey threat on the board by round three or four. The situation escalates rapidly by maintaining dominance from that point.
If you dip into an additional hue in this strategy, options such as versatile mana producers are all great options that generate any mana color. Additionally, Dryad of the Ilysian Grove lets you play an additional land each turn plus transforms your entire land base providing all land types. You can also consider such as this six-mana enchantment, which for six mana gives every card you own the capacity to tap and generate one mana of any color — which covers each creature under your control.
Badgermole Cub could be too strong when it comes to boosting mana production, but how do you win for a deck like this? An often-seen solution is this legendary creature. Its power and toughness match your land count, plus it turns your non-token creatures Forests in addition to other subtypes. Essentially, every single creature on your board may generate two green mana when tapped.
Harmonious Grovestrider is another expensive, beefy creature that thrives with many terrain cards (as with the previous card, P/T match your land total).
Nissa works perfectly in this deck. One of her abilities makes every Forest generate an additional green mana. (If you have the cub, that means those lands yield three G.) Her main ability is essentially an early earthbend, putting +1/+1 counters on terrain, which is great but it isn't redundant with earthbend. The minus ability, though, grants each land you control immune to destruction and lets you put onto the battlefield all the remaining forests in the deck. Should you manage to use the ultimate, it’s pretty much game over.
Badgermole Cub is nearly mandatory for any kind of green-based Avatar strategies that use earthbend. By including red-green, consider Bumi. He has earthbend 4, plus if he deals combat damage to a player, land creatures become untapped and may attack once more. Even though Bumi is a beloved leader, this small creature is definitely going to remain one of the most, maybe the popular pick in the collaboration.