[CUnknown]

I will admit it is thematic, but it's still very exploitive. It's true, like Morkilus says, that the attacker always loses after 50 turns, and it's exploitive for that reason, but also when combined with Wrathful Skies or something similiar, it's just rediculous.

The situation I am whining about is this: I was seiging a castle with a powerful army that unfortunately didn't have any capable fliers in a storm. A weakness, I will admit. Anyway, the enemy pops in an Air Queen with a staff of storms who casts Mists of Deception, Wrathful Skies, and then retreats.

My army would have to be able to kill several etherial units popping up at random on opposite sides of the battlefield in a single combat round in order to get out of this deathtrap -- a basically impossible task in the mist/storm. My army was obliterated with no risk to the opposing player-- he didn't even have any units on the battlefield!

I should be able to deal with etherial units popping up at random. I should be able to deal with lightning strikes hitting my guys -- sure. If I can't deal with that, it's my problem. But, the fact that he didn't even have anything on the battlefield for 47 combat rounds of lightning hitting me is just out of control. And after those 47 rounds, I would be forced to retreat.

The tactic of Wrathful Skies and casting summoning spells (like living clouds) I have no problem with -- at least there are actual enemy units on the battlefield while the lightning hits me. In the case of Mists of Deception, it was an enchantment supporting the existence of another enchantment (wrathful skies) that did the killing.

While clever and viciously evil (which I consider a good thing), I believe this tactic crosses the line enough to be considered an exploit.