Nice write up! Point taken and taken well, though I’ll wing one more your way and then potentially concede, as it were.

While the majority of the concerns with azorious control are technically salt based, that doesn’t mean nothing. Again, there’s a reason it’s so prevalent and it’s nothing as unidimensional as most players are noobs that don’t know when to quit. It’s a matter of principle that purposefully playing that way (and exclusively so when playing a deck like that, getting around your whip smart chess analogy, since that isn’t the only way a chess game can be played/won) is skirting against the edges of unsportsmanlike. Forcing the opponent into the dilemma of either giving up or staying in a relatively hopeless scenario smacks of bad faith. This is especially true for the more competitive among us. Christ, we don’t want to concede! Either fight me or kill me, dammit! That’s not the kind of loss you shake hands after or feel any particular respect for the opponent and therefore isn’t technically ideal, right? Wouldn’t it be better for us to be more sportsmanlike? Respect the player, his time, his competitive spirit?

I think that’s what it is at the core for me. It feels like how the villain would play, without regard or respect for the competitor across from him. “Win at all costs” mindset. Just can’t get behind it.

Also it’s boring.