Weigh in on if you think this would work. When people play X-Wing they fly to the center of the mat to fight, this opens up a lot of angles, even with asteroids. But what if you were fighting a Phantom, and instead of flying to the center of the mat, you cruised along your placement edge and made them come to you. I understand the argument of running/stalling, but this is a pure strategy against Phantoms. They work well with a lot of room to work, but if you place your three asteroids as close as possible to your edge and within a small range of each other and play the edge of the board you eliminate A LOT of phantom room.

If you shrink the play mat it gives it less moves to use, less room to maneuver and a better chance of getting them in your arc.

Thoughts? Criticisms?

They don't have to come to you, they can stall too. Or they can use the predictability of your ships moving along a single board edge to position themselves advantageously, and suddenly those asteroids meant to stymie them are getting in your way. It's a valid tactic, but I'd say instead of hugging your edge you just drift off to either the right or left side a bit, so you can still threaten the middle, while reducing the amount of space they have to scoot around in.

That sounds like how most people that aren't flying turrets try to handle them.

EDIT: Not necessarily hanging back against their deployment zone but trying to set up asteroids to create an area with limited room for the Phantom to decloak.