hermes's creatures are not as stable as EP, even with heavy armor, and after a long CC battle, since EP's are much harder to kill, EP comes out on top
as for seism, good point, but typically seism plays 3-4 QS, which shouldn't be too much of a setback, protected diamond shield is relatively rare, and EP does have ruby dragons even if it happens, SS from seism will be annoying, but I still think EP has the speed to defeat him
as for decay vs EP, EP can likely pull off a fractal before decay can, depends on how many phoenixes you have in the beginning of the match, you can get decay to use a lot of siphon uselessly on them, wasting quanta he could have used to play more pests. you can get a fractal on turn 4, if decay plays only one pest, you can also simply destroy every pest he plays in the early game (he will play all his pests in his hand, if you destroy them all, he won't be able to fractal pests for quite a while)