Curse Stompy (Demon Stompy Reborn)

From Twitter: Helm is strong and steals lots of games. But it can't be pitched to mox and 25% of the time does nothing. Liliana TLH has her own problems, but I 5-0'd with a list based around her. It should lose to itself less at the cost of a lower ceiling. Not sure what approach is best.

Grid plus helm lists had the most nut draws but also lost to themselves a lot (little removal, high curve, poor black count). I tried a list focused around not losing to itself, ran into a bunch of mildly favourable matchups and got a 5-0.
List
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ey7j4GgV...jpg&name=small

Matchups
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ey7j1ehV...jpg&name=small

• Liliana
  
• improves the floor of the deck by being a wincon you can play t1 before your chalice, making dark ritual always great t1 acceleration.
• Also black for chrome mox.
• Needs to be protected
  
• Needs BB
  
  
• Triumph
• Collective brutality is a more flexible card than triumph, but I need hard creature removal to complement and protect Liliana.
• Bonus 2 for 1 is nice.
  
• Deck is very soft to marit lage so extra help there is nice
  
  
• Hagra’s Mauling
  
• Extra hard removal
• A land drop when needed or dead.
• Fast smoothing
• Pitches to mox
• Worse land than silent clearing
• Worse spell than murderous rider.

The various flex slot options that I can’t decide between: (remaining 53/60 core cards identical as per list above)

Most nut draws, but terrible mana:
2 Helm
3 brutality
2 grid

A bit of everything but has trouble vs big creatures.
2 helm
3 brutality
1 Lily
4th 3ball

The above with the best fair game and mana but slow and many dead cards vs creatureless decks:
3 triumph
2 mauling
2 Liliana

Go big with max smoothing, slow, poor black count and little removal:
2 Brutality
2 Castle Lochwain
2 Helm
4th 3ball

I have tried most of the above and they all feel great or awe full in different situations.

Got another 5-0 with lilianas plus triumph and another with helm plus grid. Still not sure what is the best approach.

This is tough to evaluate because it could be meta-dependant.

Defense Grid is going to be bad when you see a lot of nonblue decks and better against fair blue. The 4th 3ball will be better against unfair decks. Grid may be better in the Challenge than it is in random Leagues, but you also don't get as many opportunities to test that out.

Your Liliana package will do best against fair creature decks, especially ones with mana denial (D&T, Goblins, UR Delver) where you can benefit from the smoother mana. It'll be worse than Helm against creature-light decks and unfair decks. It probably reduces your variance but you need a lot more than the 5 games in a League to really see the difference. Many games you won't draw any of those 7 cards so you'd need more games to notice.

As you said, they're probably great or awful in different situations. Instead of just looking at your record in a league (random matchups), I would start tracking results against different archetypes across multiple leagues. Which tier decks is the Helm-Grid build >50% against? Which tier decks is the Lili build >50% against?

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Originally Posted by FTW

This is tough to evaluate because it could be meta-dependant.

Defense Grid is going to be bad when you see a lot of nonblue decks and better against fair blue. The 4th 3ball will be better against unfair decks. Grid may be better in the Challenge than it is in random Leagues, but you also don't get as many opportunities to test that out.

Your Liliana package will do best against fair creature decks, especially ones with mana denial (D&T, Goblins, UR Delver) where you can benefit from the smoother mana. It'll be worse than Helm against creature-light decks and unfair decks. It probably reduces your variance but you need a lot more than the 5 games in a League to really see the difference. Many games you won't draw any of those 7 cards so you'd need more games to notice.

As you said, they're probably great or awful in different situations. Instead of just looking at your record in a league (random matchups), I would start tracking results against different archetypes across multiple leagues. Which tier decks is the Helm-Grid build >50% against? Which tier decks is the Lili build >50% against?

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That probably requires at least 50 matches with each deck, but is the more structured approach. T1 grid through daze is my best possible start vs delver & fow combo, but t1 lily is great vs vial and control. The amount of times i don't have BB or they don't care about lily is probably about the same I don't have leyline in top quarter of my deck or I need to pitch something to mox.

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Originally Posted by Reeplcheep

That probably requires at least 50 matches with each deck, but is the more structured approach. T1 grid through daze is my best possible start vs delver & fow combo, but t1 lily is great vs vial and control. The amount of times i don't have BB or they don't care about lily is probably about the same I don't have leyline in top quarter of my deck or I need to pitch something to mox.

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Then it sounds pretty close between the two. You'd know best from your games.

To take it any steps further, you may need to just track a large number of games and check your results against the top decks. That's what AnziD and some other competitive streamers do. If you already know what the better matchups are for each build then maybe you just pick between the two based on the expected metagame at the time. The Legacy subreddit has metagame predictions for the weekly Challenges.

Updated card discussion part of primer with the cards that were most made viable with the labe/oko bannings (plague reaver/Liliana’s triumph/Liliana the last hope/Defense grid etc.)

https://twitter.com/reeplcheep/statu...33994239320064

Got a 5-0 with the anti delver choices; mus and screenshots in twitter above. With oko gone and ur delver everywhere grid has performed well. However pelakka and grid didn’t play well together. So the list became 3 brutality 2 helm 2 grid 4 Hager’s mauling. Mauling ended up being ok in the list. BB is annoying but the list has a ton of removal and early powerful plays against blue decks.

Any consideration for Baleful Mastery in the flex slot over the Hagra Mauling/Eliminate? Only 1 black pip and good vs Marit Lage/walkers at the cost of not being land in a pinch.

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Originally Posted by hax0rm4n

Any consideration for Baleful Mastery in the flex slot over the Hagra Mauling/Eliminate? Only 1 black pip and good vs Marit Lage/walkers at the cost of not being land in a pinch.

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Hagra is a land 60 % of the time... I would only replace it with silent clearing/ifnir dead lands/pelakka predation.

Baleful mastery compared to pure removal:

Brutality is way better vs control and combo, and eliminate is so much better if you don’t need to deal with jtms or lage. Soul Shatter is much better if you need to kill JTMS and lage reliably. It only seems good if you are seeing tons of Lage AND uro, but I’m not too scared of uro in my leyline plus chalice deck.

Really interested in trying this deck. Any tips for playing it?

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Originally Posted by FistaCuffSmith

Really interested in trying this deck. Any tips for playing it?

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I have comments on the play with particular cards in the primer on the first page or in my costreams with ThrabenU. I also discuss particular matchups.

I guess some of the simplest advice:

The deck is filled with Hate cards for each matchup, but other cards will be dead. Get good at guessing the opponents archetype quickly and determining the best course of action. If you keep a hand with t1 rit 3 ball, but op leads on plains pass, you need to completely change your approach. Now you want to keep dark ritual since all that matters is resolving a payoff through D&Ts mana denial, don’t even cast your artifacts.

The deck is incredibly mana hungry. Blowing a city of traitors early is much worse than in red stompy.

The deck is built so that you don’t need all your curse targets. You should usually be ok to pitch them if you draw them.

Make sure you don’t need leyline for chrome mox before you put in in the blind.

Remember to play your tap land before your city of traitors.

A big strength of this deck is that you can side out all your lock artifacts when they are bad. Remember to do so.

Went 4-3 in the challenge for 29/76.

I beat both of my hardest matchups (GW depths and RUG delver). In my losses I can point to several mistakes in the matches in hindsight. Overall I think the build is solid in the current meta and I just need to tighten my piloting. I bought the deck in paper ($$$ cities ugh) and hope to play webcam games soon.

Would you consider putting the 4th Trinisphere in the sideboard as a Karn target? I could imagine cutting the Vault since we have more mana available now with Hagra Mauling

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Originally Posted by tillcor

Would you consider putting the 4th Trinisphere in the sideboard as a Karn target? I could imagine cutting the Vault since we have more mana available now with Hagra Mauling

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I want my karn targets to do things the maindeck doesn’t do to take advantage of the tutor aspect. I think I’d rather just cut the 2nd grid for 3 ball #4 MD if you want more 3 balls...

Additionally you often aren’t casting your karn target until t3, which is pretty late for trinisphere.

Shelled out for my first paper legacy deck.https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E1WBu9wV...jpg&name=small

Nice! WB Grids and Bridge hurt my soul a little bit, but at least they don't have terrible art.

The list of cards I am missing to make this in paper are rather embarrassing cards (besides the Opposition Agents). Just haven't been playing enough to order things from the newer sets right now.

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Originally Posted by H

Nice! WB Grids and Bridge hurt my soul a little bit, but at least they don't have terrible art.

The list of cards I am missing to make this in paper are rather embarrassing cards (besides the Opposition Agents). Just haven't been playing enough to order things from the newer sets right now.

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My art choices are a bit weird because I wanted to prioritize purchasing from locals or content creators (you can see mtgtheepicstorms views on karn on the mox)

I’ll probably pimp it out a bit once I recover from realizing I spent over 1000$ on 4 pieces of cardboard. I love the masterpiece trinisphere.

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Originally Posted by Reeplcheep

My art choices are a bit weird because I wanted to prioritize purchasing from locals or content creators (you can see mtgtheepicstorms views on karn on the mox)

I’ll probably pimp it out a bit once I recover from realizing I spent over 1000$ on 4 pieces of cardboard. I love the masterpiece trinisphere.

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Yeah, the prices are frightening nowadays. If I didn't have what is now the expensive stuff from long ago, I'd certainly be out.

But I agree, the Masterpieces are some really fantastic art, but the boarder bothers me. I like it, I also hate it and I also hate that I like it. I am the same way on foils. Lately though I just can't justify the expenditure on foils though.

But Opposition Agents are likely a card that will see more play going forward, so eventually I'll get them. The rest of the things I'd need probably total 5 dollars, so I'm certainly not worried there.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Reeplcheep

Shelled out for my first paper legacy deck.https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E1WBu9wV...jpg&name=small

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:cool::cool::cool::cool::cool: :4::b:


Great!!! Enjoy!!!


Love the Chrome Mox signature :laugh: a real "cri du cœur"

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Originally Posted by Reeplcheep

Shelled out for my first paper legacy deck.https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E1WBu9wV...jpg&name=small

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You're a terrible person for putting this together; also congratulations! :cool:

Now you'll need to start your maybe-box. Begin with Yixlid Jailer

I was 2nd in the challenge for a bit, but the wheels fell off the bus and I didn't make top 8. I was experimenting with trimming top end for more lands, seems decent in a tempo metagame.

May 16 Challenge.
Moon Stompy WW
UW Humans WW
Elves WW
Eldrazipost WW
Snowko 2 Electric Boogaloo WLW
GW Depths LL
BUGR Control LL

Deck has legs.

List

In the list above I was hedging hard for delver but didn’t play it once. I was experimenting cutting fools wisdom for lands but there have been a few situations where I wished I had the lifegain, sylvan answer, or additional threat. Conversely, it’s hard to identify where the grids or lands were game changing. One particular game in leagues vs delver the lack of it allowed my opponent to dig to enough bolts to burn me out.

I am mostly losing to forces and wasteland, and daze and enchantment hateare also problematic but I see them less.

Perhaps I should change The flexes from 4 Hagra 3 brutality 2 grid 9th swamp to 4 hagra 2 brutality 2 pelakka 4th 3ball 1 fools wisdom.

Better B count, more lands, more threats, more generically strong cards but slower and weaker to daze.

Edit: if I cut grids I would go back up to 4 3ball to help the lack of t1 plays.

4x Grief? It's black Stompy's TKS that can also Unmask opponent when you need to stop combo or force through a lock piece.

T1 Unmask + Chalice @ 1/3ball must crush Delver. If you're OTD they can't even Daze or Pierce the Unmask, only Force it. If it resolves you know if the coast is clear for Chalice/Sphere instead of having to trade them with counters.

Looking at your list, you cut all the answers to Marit Lage so no wonder you got crushed by GW Depths. Despite all those adjustments for Delver it's still a bad matchup?

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Originally Posted by FTW

4x Grief? It's black Stompy's TKS that can also Unmask opponent when you need to stop combo or force through a lock piece.

T1 Unmask + Chalice @ 1/3ball must crush Delver. If you're OTD they can't even Daze or Pierce the Unmask, only Force it. If it resolves you know if the coast is clear for Chalice/Sphere instead of having to trade them with counters.

Looking at your list, you cut all the answers to Marit Lage so no wonder you got crushed by GW Depths. Despite all those adjustments for Delver it's still a bad matchup?

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It’s actually the maverick parts of gw depths plus mox diamond that beat me this time (t1 Teeg, t2 knight etc). I wasn’t seeing depths much and plague reaver has been outstanding at cheesing people who side out removal, so I wasn’t running sac effects.

When I tried unmask it was pretty crappy in this deck. However the better hard cast mode is definitely very interesting in my deck, which always wants mana sinks. I can’t abuse it with reanimate easily. Additionally itwill definitely stretch my black count and could be too much card disadvantage. But this deck really wants more pitch cards and mana sinks: it could very well be better than brutality.


They did improve delver to even, but were pretty crappy in other matchup, and wasn’t always better as my example was trying to show. Is 50% delver 55% everything else a better or worse matchup spread than 45% delver 65 % everything else?

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Originally Posted by FTW

4x Grief? It's black Stompy's TKS that can also Unmask opponent when you need to stop combo or force through a lock piece.

T1 Unmask + Chalice @ 1/3ball must crush Delver. If you're OTD they can't even Daze or Pierce the Unmask, only Force it.

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On the grief idea I do think it has promise on further reflection. Being able to pitch extra curses to chrome mox is strong in this deck. I do think you would have to pay retail a lot of the time but that might be fine. You also would need to max out on black cards to support 8 pitch cards.

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Lots of media attention last week, I guess due to the top 16.

Deck guide by rich Cali (questionable sideboard guide)

4-1 on much abrew by SPBKASO (quite a few painful punts tho)

Shoutouts on the everyday eternal and eternal glory podcast.

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Went 4-3 in the challenge. Resurgence of rug and bug midrange was annoying to deal with since it’s hard to know what to play around. I got burnt out from 11 after stabilizing once, another was playing daze with taiga and basics

Unless an oko level planeswalker is printed again, this is a 4 of in our flex removal slot.

Marit lage and delver are the scariest threats for this deck. It deals with both nicely.

https://twitter.com/NumotTheNummy/st...805512/photo/1

4 chalice, 4 3ball, 4 this, 4 hagra mauling is a insane amount of delver hate that should bring that matchup up to even.

edit: the split second edict i mean

There has been a lot of talk of flex slots to beat the meta. I think I will summarize everything so I can think about it/discuss it more clearly.

Curses core:

4 Chalice
3 Trinisphere
4 Leyline of the Void

If you aren’t playing these cards, why are you playing black stompy?

4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
8 Swamp
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Chrome mox
4 Dark Ritual

Standard stompy manabase.

4 Karn, the Great Creator
2 Helm of Obedience
4 Curse of Misfortunes
1 Curse of Death’s Hold
1 Cruel Reality
1 Overwhelming Splendor

Expensive win the game cards that make curses curses.

That leaves 10 flex cards to adjust to the meta.

My Oko era flex:

4 Pelakka Predation
4 Eliminate
1 Trinisphere
1 Curse of Fools Wisdom

Maximized answers to oko, while having smoothing and outs vs klothys.

Post banning flex:

3 Brutality
2 Defense Grid
4 Hagra’s Mauling
1 Curse of Fools Wisdom

Flexible but weak cards with a bit of a focus on delver. With further play grid seemed very good vs delver.

Post MH2 flex? I expect monkey delver to be insane, with endurance elves and grief gaak to be the next best decks.

4 Sudden Edict
4 Hagra’s Mauling
2 Defense Grid

So the above is the most hateful deck I could come up vs delver. Uncounterable removal seems great at punishing them for letting our lock pieces resolve, and makes it easier to interact on t1 without getting dazed. Cut fools wisdom to lower curve, and Hagra’s is answers to follow up creatures of wasteland.

Thoughts? Does edict make grid unnecessary? Is edict not actually that good?

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TheEnduringIdealist is actually streaming this deck semi-regularly on Twitch. Check him out if you want to see more of the deck.

Forgot to reply to this earlier.

Congrats on 12th!

What decks did you face? What were your losses? How did the flex slots chosen line up against the blue-heavy meta? Was Edict good against them or did they just sac extra X/1s? Did you ever wish Edict was Collective Brutality?

List from the challenge is here:. It is exactly what I said above.

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Mini TR:

M1: Affinity WLW
Breakout deck of the event. Although strong vs blue, they have no answers to a t1 curse (g1) or t1 karn (g3).

M2: UR Delver LL
Undazeable removal is nice but I don’t think I took advantage of it enough to protect my sol lands. My mana sequencing needs to be updated.

M3: UW Mentor LWW
Usually this is where I would bemoan the lack of brutality. But Sudden Edict was absolute gas, killing mentors before they could make tokens 2 different times.

M4: UR Delver LL
Cutting fools wisdom lost me g2. I had locked them out but without lifegain they had enough time to cantrip for burn.

M5: RUG Delver WLW.
Drew oodles of removal, full 4 edicts felt great. I think g3 was a plague reaver kill.

M6: GWr Depths WW
Sudden edict over brutality turns this matchup from unwinnable to decent. TBF triumph would have been just as good here, but triumph is less justifiable in other matchups.

M7: Goblins WW
Opponent had very fast lackey -> muxus hands, but t2 curse otp and t1 curse OTD Easily stabilize vs the 8 goblins he dumps on the battlefield.

Overall list felt sweet. Edicts makes depths a lot better and delver a decent bit better, which are my worst matchups. I am still consistently beating everything else. Hagra’s mauling was quite good in all three modes vs delver compared to predation. In other testing it only felt worse than brutality vs GSZ decks, burn, or storm, which are generally good matchups. All the broken new cards have mostly replaced y. Pyro, so I haven’t missed brutality there. think I will cut a grid to fit the fools wisdom back in; the lifegain could have got me a top 8 instead of out on breakers.

In leagues I got a sweet kill on griselbrand when they gave me priority before drawing. The targeting downside vs triumph did come up once (vs bug with leovold)
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Well done tomjab on the 5-0 last week

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Originally Posted by Reeplcheep

M2: UR Delver LL
Undazeable removal is nice but I don’t think I took advantage of it enough to protect my sol lands. My mana sequencing needs to be updated.

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How have you been sequencing that loses to Daze?

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Originally Posted by Reeplcheep

M3: UW Mentor LWW
Usually this is where I would bemoan the lack of brutality. But Sudden Edict was absolute gas, killing mentors before they could make tokens 2 different times.

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Sounds like a critical error from the opponent, casting a naked Mentor without making tokens. Was this because Chalice or 3Sphere stopped them from casting more spells that turn? Overeager Mentor windmill slam on 3 mana? Or were they holding up spells to make tokens at instant speed and burned by split second? Edict should fail miserably vs Mentor normally.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Reeplcheep

M4: UR Delver LL
Cutting fools wisdom lost me g2. I had locked them out but without lifegain they had enough time to cantrip for burn.

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Should be easy to cut either 1 Grid or 1 Edict to make room. Given the popularity of UR Delver and Uro decks in this week's Challenges, do you think you need Grid more than the 4th Edict? Does the Depths match get much worse with only 3 Edicts?

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Originally Posted by Reeplcheep

M7: Goblins WW
Opponent had very fast lackey -> muxus hands, but t2 curse otp and t1 curse OTD Easily stabilize vs the 8 goblins he dumps on the battlefield.

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Being able to stabilize against T2 Muxus just shows how strong Dark Ritual is in your deck, for anyone questioning playing Ritual in a Chalice deck.

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Originally Posted by FTW

How have you been sequencing that loses to Daze?

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Not to daze, to wasteland. I think I autoplayed tomb plus mox to kill delver like it was a normal 2 cmc removal (exposing myself to wasteland) instead of playing swamp plus mox.

Edit: I had a curse and city in hand, so it was not completely unreasonable to go faster in a vacuum but probably still bad.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FTW

Sounds like a critical error from the opponent, casting a naked Mentor without being able to make tokens. Was this because Chalice or 3Sphere stopped them from casting more spells that turn? Overeager Mentor windmill slam on 3 mana? Or were they holding up spells to make tokens at instant speed and burned by split second? Edict should fail miserably vs Mentor normally.

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Chalice was in play, and they had used a ancestral knowledge 2 turns previously to hit land drops. They had 5 lands but one was an I cracked fetch. It’s likely the only castable cards less than 3 cmc were countermagic. Anyways the fact it makes their sequencing awkward is still an advantage even if they play around it.

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Originally Posted by FTW

Should be easy to cut either 1 Grid or 1 Edict to make room. Given the popularity of UR Delver and Uro decks in this week's Challenges, do you think you need Grid more than the 4th Edict? Does the Depths match get much worse with only 3 Edicts?

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I’m not sure. All things being equal I prefer a card that pitches to mox, top decks better, and that I don’t need to side out vs non-blue. Having 2 edicts in my hand g1 made it basically impossible to lose vs depths, but that deck doesn’t see a ton of play anymore. However grid is easier to play on t1 and gives you more nut hands.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FTW

Being able to stabilize against T2 Muxus just shows how strong Dark Ritual is in your deck, for anyone questioning playing Ritual in a Chalice deck.

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Sol lands plus dark ritual is a drug I just can’t quit. And part of the reason I have such better non-blue control/midrange matchups than most other stompy decks.

With how absurd Urza’s saga is in non-colour intensive decks, should I be playing it?

Pros:
Uncounterable threats help a ton vs the pile of forces deck.
Large ground blockers.
I am running a minimum of 13 artifacts plus 4 karn so the tokens will usually be of a decent size.
I could easily run 3 vault of whispers if I wanted to.
It could justify a mox opal which I have considered in the past as chrome mox #5
Hagra’s mauling allows me to support more colourless lands than normal.
Increases threat density.

Cons:
I don’t have as many artifacts as affinity
Losing a land is a very large cost in a high curve deck.
Huge anti-synergy with city of Traitors.
It will increase me susceptibility to wasteland and possibly null rod/Ouphe/force of Vigor.

If I do play it what role is it serving and what card does it replace?
Is it a fragile land with massive upside (city traitors)? Is it a utility land (urborg)? Is it a fuck counter spells card (grid)? Is it a “Hope the opponent sided out plow” card (reaver)?

I think Saga is not worth it.

1) You don't have any good targets to tutor, maybe a Mox. If you sacrifice a land to tutor for Mox Opal in a monoblack deck, this is worse than just playing Swamp.
2) You have much lower artifact count than the decks abusing it, so the creatures might only be 3/3s. Since you're a creatureless deck whose win condition isn't combat damage, making 3/3s doesn't necessarily help you win, and it turns on their dead removal.
3) It taps for 1 instead of B or 2
4) It's not a permanent mana source

The last 2 are the main reasons not to play it just for marginal value. Near the start of the development, there was more discussion about optimizing the manabase. I remember you saying some cards were hard to support due to lack of black mana or vulnerability to manabase attacks. You need both acceleration and consistent black mana. Land drops that don't tap for 2 or B slow down the main plan too much. Running Vault of Whispers over Swamp would also impair your mana for the main stompy plan.

I think the Saga decks are going to force people to run a lot of artifact hate. Decks that aren't going completely degenerate with artifacts will get punished for running random artifact lands. For example, if UR Delver uses Meltdown now instead of Abrade to answer Chalice @ 1, Vault of Whispers means you're just sacrificing a land for no reason.

Good points overall. Losing to the fow fow library is frustrating but less so than losing to your own manabase.

Getting a mox opal might be worse than a swamp, but getting an uncounterable meekstone vs delver...

Played a list with 4 edict, 0 saga, 1 fools wisdom as above (cutting grid). Wnet 4-2 for 9/64 in challenge today.
Mini TR:
9th on breakers in today's challenge. Some of the wins feel dominant and the losses feel close; curses feels pretty good. Sudden edict is sweet.
D&T WW
GWr Depths WW
$T4X LWW
UR Delver WLL
Super-Sweet Madness brew LL
Bant Control WW

Edit:List posted.
As discussed above, ended up cutting 2nd grid for fools wisdom as it delver was getting hated out. Although powerful, I did not end up trying Urza’s saga due to the manabase issues it might cause.

phil playing curses

Not the best showing as splendor stuck to him like glue. Nothing seemed horrible but he just couldn’t quite beat delver. I’m not totally sure what I could add to improve the matchup however. Since I don’t have many bad cards md except karn.

More brutalities? Delver is running a bunch of X/1s, perhaps Desert or Blast Zone.
Could be good as a maze of Ith-esque land that can also tap for mana? Sideboard Spinning Darkness? Liliana, the last hope?

Congrats on 9th. You keep just barely missing Top 8, but overall doing well.

Vs Delver that's a tough one. You already have 4x Sudden Edict main. I don't think any other 1-for-1 will be better vs Delver, so now we are talking about potential 2-for-1s to recover from behind. Plague Engineer or Night of Souls' Betrayal attack their X/1s. Desert or Liliana, the Last Hope could represent the same thing, but this build already has 4x Engineer in the SB. How much space is there? Opp Agent also seems good as a 2-for-1, and you already have 3 of those too. Those are easier to cast early than Lili. So it's tough.

I think Phil misplayed a bit because he doesn't have your experience with the deck.

R1G1 - Big punt not imprinting Splendor on Mox. He wanted BB short-term, but I think he didn't see the bigger picture. Wasting a Dark Ritual to cast a 3-drop, when the hand can already make 3 mana on turn 1, ignores the long game plan of needing to cast even bigger spells. The deck is low on BB requirements. Eventually you will draw a 2nd black source (or can Ritual for it), but you will never be able to use that Splendor or put it back in the library, so the opening hand is already 6 cards. He had the option to play it as a 6-card hand (imprinting dead card on Mox) or a 5-card hand (imprinting usable card on Mox) and went for the 5-card hand, which fails to punish opponent for the 2-for-1 T0 Force on only business.

I think Phil wins that game by playing T1 White Mox, keeping Dark Ritual in hand to hardcast future business (like that Cruel Reality when a 3rd land is drawn). That allows him to play with -1 card (imprint already dead card) instead of -3 cards (2 dead cards in hand + useful card imprinted on Mox). +2 hand size is a big difference. Ritual in hand to cast that Cruel Reality off Hagra Mauling might have won the game (Grid protection active).

How do you SB vs Delver? He boarded:
-4 Karn, -3 3sphere, +4 Engineer + 2 Reaver +1 Helm

That doesn't look right to me. 0-1 Helm feels more correct than 3. It's the worst wincon in this match and dead in multiples. 3sphere is also such a beating against Delver, even OTD. Their deck engine is superior mana utilization. Resolving 3sphere is like resolving 5 Time Walks.

In G2 I think he got punished by running too many Helms and drawing 2. 1st Karn is much better than 2nd Helm, even if Karn just tutors for Helm and then immediately dies. Karn for Bridge (then dying to Delver) is much better than whatever those Helms did. I think he also lost by prematurely committing mana sources to the board. He played Mauling as a land and imprinted Reaver on Mox to try to ramp to 5 for Curse, but this is going -2 black cards just to try to resolve another 1. I think that was the wrong play. It was not yet clear if Mauling or Reaver would be useful or if he could guarantee resolving Curse, so why force a decision whether they should be mana or business? Opponent did nothing to force a decision yet. Sure Curse represents GG, but accelerating out Curse loses to Wasteland or Daze/FoW/FoN+3 mana. Delver has too many answers. Meanwhile Phil was already ahead on board. He was not forced to jam. Opponent was forced to stabilize. The way he loses his advantage is by Hymning himself to overcommit to 1 other card and then not being able to resolve that card. With Delver running 13-14 answers, that's not a gamble I would take. Keep the 2 cards in hand for now in case they are useful later. Casting Curse later could still win the game, opponent has no clock yet, but Hymning yourself into missing Curse could absolutely lose you the game.

Basically he started with a lead but then hemorrhaged cards from decisions (-1 Mauling as land not used to cast anything important, -1 Reaver imprinted on Mox without casting anything important, -1 useless Helm cast, -1 dead Helm in hand). -4 hand size for no reason. Not boarding in Helms and not overcommitting to Curse would give +4 cards in hand!! With a 0-mana Opportunity he probably doesn't lose that advantage. Spell-side of Mauling kills Delver, Karn over Helm gets Bridge and absorbs damage, etc. In both games he basically had more dead cards than he needed to, then ended up running out of resources. A different set of decisions leaves him with a higher number of business spells to interact and thus a bigger fighting chance.

How would you have played those matches?

I don't know how you're sequencing vs Delver, but I think more wins could be unlocked by sequencing decisions not just deck composition. Especially against blue decks, expect disruption. Hemorrhage as few cards as possible to have the most tools available to fight them. The fewer business cards you cast, the easier they can stop you. Play to increase the number of things you are casting so they are less likely to have enough answers.