The new Magic: The Gathering set, Avatar, officially launches tomorrow after a successful prerelease week. Despite some community concerns about the Universes Beyond series following the Spider-Man set and the announcement of four such sets next year, Avatar is generating a lot of excitement. The set’s mechanics effectively capture the spirit of the Avatar world, promising engaging gameplay and creative card combinations. One card, Badgermole Cub, is already standing out as particularly strong.
Players at the prerelease event for the Avatar set quickly discovered that certain cards and strategies were surprisingly powerful when built around in a dedicated deck, particularly those involving air and earthbending. While waterbending is strong, it doesn’t seem as impactful as some other elements. Firebending can be devastating with the right mana sources – cards like Zhao, the Moon Slayer, for example, can gain a counter for seven mana and turn all nonbasic lands into Mountains. However, air and earthbending truly have the potential to change the course of a game, and Badgermole Cub perfectly illustrates this power.
The Best Badgermole Cub Combos in Magic: The Gathering Explained
Badgermole Cub Breaks Fetchlands
Fetchlands are special land cards that let you trade them in to search your deck for a basic land and put it directly into play. This helps you streamline your deck and ensures you have the specific land type you need, and it’s especially useful because the new land comes into play ready to use. In Magic: The Gathering, the ‘earthbend’ ability turns a land into a creature with haste and a number of strength boosts equal to the earthbend value. When that creature dies, it returns to the battlefield tapped, ready for another turn. This creates interesting possibilities – for example, you could play a Badgermole Cub and then earthbend a fetchland, sacrificing the fetchland to get a basic land into play, and then have the fetchland return to the field to use again next turn.
Badgermole Cub + Llanowar Elves Can Reshape Standard
Badgermole Cub is a powerful creature with a unique ability: every time you tap a creature to generate mana, you get an extra Green mana. This allows for incredibly fast starts, like playing Llanowar Elves on turn one and Badgermole Cub on turn two, giving you a total of four mana right away. This ability works with any creature that can tap for mana – often called ‘mana dorks’ – such as the popular Birds of Paradise (found in the Magic: The Gathering Final Fantasy Chocobo Bundle). Because both Badgermole Cub and Llanowar Elves are currently allowed in Standard format, this combination could form the basis of a new, aggressive Green deck.
You can make this strategy even more powerful by including fetchlands. Playing one on turn two, combined with the initial combo and an extra mana source – like a mana dork, mana rock, or even another Badgermole Cub – could give you 8 to 10 mana by turn three.
How Badgermole Cub Can Make Commander’s Most Hated Playstyle Worse
In the Commander format, using cards that destroy many lands at once is often considered a frustrating and unsportsmanlike tactic, as it can significantly delay the game and disrupt other players’ strategies. While destroying single lands with cards like Strip Mine and Wasteland is generally accepted, a card called Badgermole Cub creates a problem: it allows you to reuse these land-destroying effects, essentially doubling their impact and potentially causing even more disruption.
This strategy can be used with any card that lets you earthbend, and Badgermole Cub is a particularly affordable option.
Badgermole Cub Gives Your Urza’s Saga A Lot More Value
Urza’s Saga is a hugely popular and strong card, especially in decks focused on artifacts. Because it’s both a land and a Saga, it can be brought back to the battlefield after completing its third chapter using a card like Earthbend. This allows players to create the token from Urza’s Saga multiple times – once with each of the second and third chapters, and then again each time the land returns to play. Cards like Life from the Loam or Icetill Explorer from Edge of Eternities can help repeatedly bring Urza’s Saga back into play, maximizing its effect.
Two Commander Staples Create a Powerful Infinite Combo With Badgermole Cub
As a Commander player, let me tell you, Badgermole Cub is causing some serious headaches – and not in a good way. It either completely breaks certain strategies, or is broken by them. We’re talking about popular cards like Ashaya, Soul of the Wild, and Zuran Orb. Both are strong on their own, usually part of a combo, but together with Badgermole Cub, things get… weird. If you have both Ashaya and Zuran Orb out, casting Badgermole Cub turns it into a Forest, thanks to Ashaya’s ability. Then, you can sacrifice this now-Forest Badgermole Cub to Zuran Orb for a measly 2 life. But here’s the kicker: that sacrifice brings Badgermole Cub back into play, triggering its ability again, turning it into a Forest once more, and allowing the cycle to repeat endlessly. The result? Well, let’s just say it’s not a sustainable way to win.
- Infinite life
- Infinite gain life triggers
- Infinite ETB (enter the battlefield) triggers
- Infinite LTB (leave the battlefield) triggers
- Infinite death triggers
- Infinite sacrifice triggers
- Infinite landfall triggers
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2025-11-21 07:04