Judging by reports, TIE Phantoms have made a big splash in the meta, less so in actually being played than in scaring people away from swarms and toward turrets, and to a lesser degree, high PS builds. Most of the impetus seems to be coming from "super-Phantoms", i.e., a named Phantom pilot with VI and Advanced Cloaking Device. To borrow a term, these super-Phantom lists seem more like predatory squads, in that they are a PS bid that rocks hard against lists where they have a PS advantage, and much less so against lists that can mitigate their advantage. The main difference from a normal PS bid is that the Phantom advantage from PS is just so much more than a normal PS advantage, and it's mitigated by buffed turrets.

Getting all that background out of the way. What does the Phantom or Phantom squad look like when you make it to be a team player in a world full of counters instead of a superstar that occasionally falls flat against the wrong opponents? The squad I've seen thrown around a lot is Phantom + mini-swarm. This uses the spare points in the squad to counter the Phantoms biggest problem: The Falcon. What are the other options, though? Do non-Advanced Cloaking Device, non-named Phantoms have a place as a cheaper supporting ship instead of the prime focus of a squad? I really have no experience with or against Phantoms, so this is just a thought exercise for me. I'm really curious to see what other think.

This is a hard one. I think the key is Rebel Captive on Whisper. But the fact is Phantom counters eat Phantoms worse than Phantoms eat most lists, leaving Phantoms a bad bet for now. At equilibrium, in a meta that realizes this and runs the counters to counter Phantom lists we'll see that Phantoms still don't hold up because of the hardness of their counters.

I guess I'm trying to figure out if there are Phantom builds that don't take up too many points, and provide enough of an advantage in certain areas while not being a liability if you play a Falcon list.

For example (just brainstorming, I'm probably wrong):

Could you take a Shadow Squadron Pilot with Advanced Cloaking Device to deal with any generic pilots, and have 69 remaining points to make a squad focused on dealing with Falcons/High PS enemies?

Could you take a Sigma Squadron Pilot with Stygium Particle Accelerator and just use it as a gunship, relying on shields and the Evade token to keep it alive long enough to bring down a problem enemy ship?

Could you take a Sigma Squadron Pilot with Mara Jade or Fleet Officer (bad examples, as their not out yet) that flies around as a support ship that can still unexpectedly decloak to give the other squad a lot to think about for not that many points?

I played a squad the other day that was howl, 4 ap's, and echo with ACD (but no VI). I won, but it was more from my opponent making some bad moves than anything, it's a tough group to take down.

Echo being at PS6 means you are more likely to get in shots before the ACD kicks in, but then you have to worry about 4 ap's with howl support gunning you down in the meantime.