A baby badgermole brings a landslide Value: 5 absurdly effective plays

Magic: The GatheringThe Avatar set has been available for a while now during pre-release week and will finally launch tomorrow. Even though community morale regarding Universes Beyond has been at rock bottom since the Spider-Man debacle and the announcement that it will feature a total of four UB Standard sets next year, Avatar has a lot of hype surrounding it and has been very well received. With interesting mechanics that perfectly captures what the Avatar IP is all about, it's new Magic: The Gathering the set has great potential for interesting gameplay and great combos. One of the new backlog cards is already clear and it's Badgermole Cub.

If such a thing exists MTG players learned during the run up to Avatar that some cards and mechanics could be incredibly broken with a special deck, especially airbending and earthbending. Waterbending is a powerful mechanic, but perhaps less game-changing than others. Firebending is extremely powerful with the right mana outlets such as MTG's Zhao, Moon Slayer, who can get a counter on himself for 7 mana and turn all non-basic lands into mountains. However, airbending and earthbending can dramatically reshape the game, and Badgermole Cub is a perfect example of this.

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Best Baby Badger Combos in Magic: The Gathering Explained

A baby dachshund smashes the Fetchlands

Fetchlands are land cards that allow you to sacrifice them, pay 1 life, search your library for a basic land and put it into play. It's a great way to thin your deck and always have exactly the type of land you need, and it's especially powerful because newly played lands go in untapped. Avatar's bending mechanic v MTG allows you to turn any land into a creature with haste and a number of +1/+1 counters on it equal to earthbend, and when it dies it will return to the battlefield tapped. So yes, that means you can play a Badgermole Cub and die fetchland, sacrifice it to get a basic land into play, and then the fetchland is returned to the field for you to use again next turn.

Baby badgermole + Llanowar Elves can reshape standard

Badgermole Cub has an ability that says “Whenever you tap a creature for mana, add another green mana”, which means you can effectively cast Llanowar Elves on turn 1, then Badgermole Cub on turn 2 and instantly have two more mana to cast anything else. This works on all mana dorks, meaning creatures that can tap for mana, such as the iconic Birds of Paradise found in MTGFinal Fantasy Chocobo Pack. Since both Llanowar Elves and Badgermole Cub are legal in Standard, this could be the core of the new Green Stompy deck.

This combo can be taken even further by adding fetchlands to the mix, playing fetchland on turn 2, and using the first combo explained above along with another mana dork, mana rock, or maybe even another Badgermole hatchling for 8-10 turn 3 mana.

How the Badgermole Cub can make the commander's most hated playstyle worse

Depending on who is asked, one of the most heinous crimes in Commander is when a player at the table uses mass land destruction, as it can set the game back many turns, prolonging the game and ruining combos for others. However, tools like Strip Mine and Wasteland are more socially acceptable because they focus on a specific land. The problem is that you can bend both Strip Mine and Wasteland with Badgermole Cub, which means it can be used twice to destroy enemy lands because it returns to the field after use.

It works with any earthbend card, but Badgermole Cub is one of the cheapest in terms of mana cost.

A Dachshund Cub adds much more value to your Urza Saga

Urza's Saga is probably one of the most iconic cards in the game and is extremely strong in artifact decks. Because it is both a land and a saga, it can become a target for landbending, meaning it will return to the field once its third chapter is completed. A powerful effect of this is that players can create an Urza Saga token twice (once in Chapter 2 and then in Chapter 3) and then repeat the process once the land comes back into play thanks to earthbend. This can be enhanced further with cards like Life from the Loam or Icetill Explorer from Edge of Eternities, which repeatedly bring Urza's saga back into play.

Two commander staples make a powerful endless combo with a dachshund pup

There are many cards that either break or are broken by Badgermole Cub, including the popular Ashaya, Soul of the Wild, and Zuran Orb. These are powerful cards MTG Commander decks on their own, but are often part of some combo strategy. In this case, if they're both on the field and you cast Baby Badgermole, he can bend thanks to Ashaya because he's a Forest. Zuran Orb can then be activated by sacrificing an earth Badgermole Cub to gain 2 life, meaning the Badgermole Cub will return to play, its ETB earthbend ability will trigger again, and since it's still a Forest, it can trigger itself and repeat the cycle over and over. Achieving this award honors you with: