When explicitly setting an identity, either via the -i commandline parameter or IdentityFile in the ssh config, these files are used only after any other identity files found in ~/.ssh/ have failed pubkey authentication.
When the remote host limits the number of pubkey authentication failures before disconnecting, this can lead to a situation where the explicit identity file is not even used when connecting to that host.
When explicitly setting an identity, either via the -i commandline parameter or IdentityFile in the ssh config, these files are used only after any other identity files found in ~/.ssh/ have failed pubkey authentication.
When the remote host limits the number of pubkey authentication failures before disconnecting, this can lead to a situation where the explicit identity file is not even used when connecting to that host.