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Magic: The Gathering’s collaboration with Avatar isn't set to get a wider release until later this week, yet after pre-releases recently, a low-cost green spell saw a sharp rise in price.

From the initial reveals, this small creature garnered a lot of attention. A 2/2 requiring G and 1 mana, the card features Earthbending 1 (arguably the most effective of the elemental mechanics available). The major perk here lies in another power: If you tap a creature for mana, you gain one extra green mana.

At its cheapest, the card was available below $30. Post-prerelease, though, its value has shot up to $49.66 including listings for sale at $60.00. What explains such high costs for this little creature? Mainly due to the incredible mana acceleration it provides.

Upon entering play, this creature transforms a terrain card into a creature that has earthbending. And with that second ability, as long as it stays in play, each affected land yields two mana instead of one — in addition to mana-producing creatures in your control that produce resources.

The obvious go-to for maximum effect would be Llanowar Elves, a cheap 1/1 that taps to generate one green mana. But many alternative mana dorks available. Druid of the Cowl is a more expensive alternative a 1/3 creature for two mana as an alternative.

Using land cards, mana-producing creatures, plus the cub, you can easily get a massive high-cost threat on the board early in the game. The situation escalates rapidly if you keep the pressure on from there.

By incorporating a secondary color with this approach, examples including versatile mana producers are excellent picks that can make all five colors. Another card, Dryad of the Ilysian Grove lets you play another terrain every round as well as transforms every land you control so they count as all basics. Another possibility is such as the enchantment A Realm Reborn, costing six mana provides all of your permanents the power to tap and generate any color mana — which covers all creatures under your control.

The cub could be too strong regarding ramping up your mana generation, yet how do you win in such a strategy? One obvious and popular answer is Ashaya. Its power and toughness are both equal to your land count, and it changes your non-token creatures Forests in addition to their original types. Essentially, each creature you control can generate two green mana by tapping.

Harmonious Grovestrider provides a high-cost, powerful body which gains from lots of lands (like Ashaya, its power and toughness are based on your land total).

This Planeswalker is an excellent fit as a go-to Planeswalker. Her passive ability causes every Forest tap for one more G. (Combined with earthbend, this results in all earthbend forests generate three green mana.) Her main ability is essentially an early earthbend, putting +1/+1 counters on a land, a useful effect but it isn't redundant with earthbend. Her -8 ability, however, grants each land you control immune to destruction and lets you draw out your remaining Forests in the deck. Once you trigger that ability, it almost certainly game over.

The cub is nearly mandatory for all green Avatar deck built around earthbend. If you dip into red and green, you can use Bumi. He has level 4 earthbending, plus if damage is dealt in combat, each animated land untap and may attack once more. Even though Bumi has emerged as a beloved leader, this small creature is definitely going to remain among the top, possibly the desired card in the collaboration.