I agree, this cancellation looks weird.
Early C++ Lix was more lenient here: The top half of the miner's very first stroke was immune against steel. I.e., steel pixels didn't cancel the miner, even though these pixels weren't destroyed either.
Last year, geoo merged the two half-strokes. I forgot what happened to the steel immunity of the first stroke's top half. Most likely, geoo has preserved the immunity in the top half. I should check the C++ source.
I know that the D miner has no steel immunity whatsoever. The basher has immunity in the top 2 hi-res pixel rows, so this concept is already in place. I'm open to re-introduce immunity.
-- Simon