Yeah, I got a couple of opponents that did this as well and it makes a lot of sense. Just EGO-style snap and fist bump right from the start, then concede if you lose the 8. (In proving grounds)

Huh,.. I havn't been tempted to use gold at all since I FTP and only hoard gold to use in good bundles. To me it felt more like free 200gold.

I noticed this as well. One good thing though, it seems that a lot of people have learned to surrender/leave when they are at 2 cubes to 10, although I'm pretty sure that in a higher tier match most will try for the 5win streak comeback and that can be a slog. I wonder if it would be too much of a disadvantage for the losing player to have a shorter rope timer the higher the cube deficit is(?)