...with the current cards available anyways.

It's not any one individual thing, it's a combination of many. Sure, Sylvan decks can be beaten, but it's not all that likely if you're not playing Sylvan. I know. I used to play Sylvan all the time. I didn't realize how bad it was until I devoted myself to building an elemental deck that can actually win games. But I digress... the following are the pillars of strength upon which Sylvan dominance is built:

#1 Weenie Hoard

This game is won and lost with tiny creatures in the first five rounds. When you have an army of them, you can control the board early, capture flux wells, and destroy construction sites if your opponent tries to expand.

#2 Low Cost Creature Control

Ascent and entangle add to #1. If you manage to cast a creature that poses a risk, it will be immobilized. Now you've lost a lot of tempo. Bear strength could also be included in this category. If you don't have any worthwhile creatures, I'll just take out your base.

#3 Vision

Sylvan has more low cost, high vision creatures than any other domain. And when you have lots of creatures anyway, there's no hiding from the Elvish wrath...

#4 Mobility

Sylvan creatures have more mobility than any other domain. Many have high speed, forestride, or of course, aloft. I believe there are 5 different creatures that can spawn in forests. Thistle falcons terrorize everyone, teleport can be used in a wide variety of deadly ways, and beacons of celador make the sylvan army nearly invincible. Playing as sylvan, you won't even need greening... your opponent should have lost by then. And if they haven't, they're probably playing sylvan as well.

#5 Low cost, high vision buildings

What more can I say? I actually tried to improve an elemental deck by adding thistle falcons, low cost buildings, and creatures that could spawn in forests. Then I realized how silly that was. The elemental components of the deck were slowing the sylvan half down. >.>

#6 Ranged Attack

But more importantly, relatively LOW COST ranged attack. There are at least 4 sylvan creatures that have ranged attack... they all cost four flux or less to cast, and none of them are rare. And even worse than the falcons, aquatic ranged attack will bring you to tears if you weren't there already.

#7 Aloft

Sylvan has absolute aerial dominance. No, they don't have many aloft creatures... but falcons are enough. What? You cast your own aloft creature with 1hp? That's fine, I'll just used my ranged attack, or attack it with my falcon right now. My falcon has 2hp anyways, and I might even have a blindweed paultrice in my hand. Oh, you cast a dusk efreet? It's so cute of you to try to play Elemental. ASCENT. Too bad you won't be able to cast it next turn, since it costs FOUR flux and you're only getting three a round with my barricade of little creatures enveloping your base. Cast it again and I'll be waiting. But are you even sure you want to cast it again? I only have one aloft creature, and your base is now down to 3 hp... mwhahahahahahaahaha...

By the way, I just captured my third flux well. Good luck wrenching the central flux well from my beacon of celador. But just because I can, I'll cast a spaff's greatbow by my beacon, and a tree mother next to your base just to prove that you never had a chance...

>.>

And it goes without saying that the elemental domain is deficient in all of these categories.

PS - buying Greening

you forgot:

#8 Charm - you finally get a creature out which can combat the elvish zerg and then it goes away, permanently (used to not even be an enchantment, that was fun).

granted, there are ways to combat most of the issues above, but it takes a very concentrated deck and a heck of a good draw. as far as I can tell, only MF can hope to have a chance and even then it's 50-50 at best. I have a feeling this is why most of the top players are playing sylvan (or MF). I'm about to switch to sylvan for exactly the reasons you listed above.

My post about terrain was seeking to address what I consider the most grievous and uncounterable imbalance.. but it seems to be dead in the water.

Watchtower-beacon for a 2nd turn middle cap is pretty much the 2nd biggest problem and is almost a universal gg unless you have one too.

... and you wanted to further nerf training. right. ;P

the simple summation of your post is that sylvan have ways around all the important barriers of gameplay with almost none of the drawbacks the other races have.

2nd turn? Son if you're playing mostly treents, you don't need a base at all. Great oak and Watchtower it on the first round.

_________________
-Minds

with drain blood you have a good chance to destroy lots of sylvan creatures

unless they have a telda bloom in hand

Elementals have Reform which does the same as Telda Bloom. Elementals have Hailstorm to wipe the weenies also. MF's Attrition is a weenie-stopper as well. To say that Sylvan is unstoppable is ridiculous. The maybe have a little more loving than others but I don't think it's insurmountable. My biggest peeve with them is [I believe, I haven't counted all the cards] the utter dominance in both ranged and aloft creatures.

I agree reason #1, the weenie hoard is the least of the problems and seems more like a balanced sylvan 'trait'. The others like low cost/high vision buildings and aloft/range/mobility creature dominance are much more severe and don't seem to be balanced.

Too bad elemental decks never have enough creatures out to make Reform really useful... and hailstorm doesn't take out thistle falcons, but it DOES help to ruin all your mahals, so playing the card has more flux expense than the casting cost.

Do you guys think that the price of individual sylvan cards is right? I'm wondering if maybe vision and speed aren't priced correctly in general?