I'd really like to know this secret "lrn 2 fly" approach against phantoms. My experience is that if you don't have a "hard counter" or a swarm (or reasonable number of ships with which to block), then a patient Phantom player, especially Echo, will just bounce around all day until he has a good shot and you don't. That being said, I'm hardly a great player, so I acknowledge I have much to learn.

I haven't played tournaments, so maybe it's a different story when you only have an hour to make your money. But I think that the hour time limit is an artificial conceit that specifically pressures the Phantom player, who would otherwise play a slow, patient game until he has the favorable angle. Regardless, i'm not sure if adding in the time limit constraint is the right approach to evaluating the overall strength of the Phantom. Then again, maybe it is.

That being said, regardless of "autowin" claims, I think it's hard to deny that the possibility of encountering a Phantom is very much in people's minds when considering their list. And that, by their very nature, makes them...well..it makes them something. Maybe not "overpowered" or "imbalanced"....we need a new word...how about "rude"? Yes. I like that. Phantoms are rude ships :-)

I one shot a cloaked Whisper at R3, through an asteroid on the second turn of my game last week. All with a Cartel Spacer w/ HLC.

Green dice suck.

I one shot a cloaked Whisper at R3, through an asteroid on the second turn of my game last week. All with a Cartel Spacer w/ HLC.

Green dice suck.

One-hand, behind the head, eyes closed, over the canyon, in a moving car, nothing but net.

I'd really like to know this secret "lrn 2 fly" approach against phantoms. My experience is that if you don't have a "hard counter" or a swarm (or reasonable number of ships with which to block), then a patient Phantom player, especially Echo, will just bounce around all day until he has a good shot and you don't. That being said, I'm hardly a great player, so I acknowledge I have much to learn.

I haven't played tournaments, so maybe it's a different story when you only have an hour to make your money. But I think that the hour time limit is an artificial conceit that specifically pressures the Phantom player, who would otherwise play a slow, patient game until he has the favorable angle. Regardless, i'm not sure if adding in the time limit constraint is the right approach to evaluating the overall strength of the Phantom. Then again, maybe it is.

That being said, regardless of "autowin" claims, I think it's hard to deny that the possibility of encountering a Phantom is very much in people's minds when considering their list. And that, by their very nature, makes them...well..it makes them something. Maybe not "overpowered" or "imbalanced"....we need a new word...how about "rude"? Yes. I like that. Phantoms are rude ships :-)

Phantoms are very rude. The secret to fighting phantoms is stop caring about the phantom. If they are running phantom + Chirpy, just blast that fat kid out of the water as fast as possible, then play the patient game back. When fighting a phantom work hard on predicting the direction they will decloak, since it will usually be out of only 2/3 sides with asteroids. Also consider the tie fighter dial that the phantom has, and consider what it will do after a decloak. If they're playing echo slowly, ignore her until you get a good shot, hopefully with multiple ships. Chasing a phantom and ignoring its escort is playing directly into their hands.

You either need a hard counter to Phantoms (Echo especially), or you have to hope for the Phantom player to make a mistake. This is not the same thing as working to outplay your opponent, you are banking on a major screw up (like landing on a rock) to win the game. At higher levels, you cannot count on your opponent to make that mistake so you control for it by bringing something with which you can attempt to take control.

In any list I hope to actually win through a tournament with, I include some mechanism to deal with Phantoms specifically. I usually put something in to deal with Fat turrets as well, but some lists are inherently solid against those without needing to add a specific counter. If I don't have a way to deal with Echo/Whisper, I am setting myself up for failure. That doesn't mean I would scoop up my stuff and pout if I met a Phantom list while fielding a mid range PS turretless list, but I would need the mistake to occur to pull the game out. Fat Han is a ship that can be outplayed (with difficulty sure, it's a tough list) with any list you bring even without your opponent having a major blunder.

If your opponents are very high level players, you cannot have your primary game plan be to expect a blunder on their part, and you can expect to have high level opponents by the time you reach the final rounds. Non-tournament play, even competitive non-tourney play, is something else entirely. Since a single loss won't end your day, you don't need to be so concerned with a single bad matchup.

Edit: Too much is made about tournament style play. I'm not talking about competitive play, I mean tournaments specifically. Tournaments require you to win every game in a series, which is not the same thing as finding a list that is competitive enough let you win a reasonable number of games against other competitive lists. List building for tournaments is not something that should be encouraged for general play, they tend to be lowest common denominator lists rather than the quirky fun lists that can liven up an evening and be competitive at the same time.

Yar, always plan for the phantom first. The Fattie is more of an issue of ensuring you have enough bulk and dice in your list to survive the inevitable dice-off of boredom, but that can be brought along more easily than phantom counters.

Now, phantoms do have a wider variety of counters:

PS 9 (not amazing but you get an advantage either shooting before re-cloak or moving after the phantom)

PS 10+ (massive, moving after the phantom and shooting before the re-cloak are amazing abilities to have)

PS 0 (hope for a lucky crit...or just use Mux. Basically turns the phantom into an HLC Z-95. Removing those 2 green dice is huge, especially when they've saved Whisper far more times than her arc-dodging ever did)

Ion (de-cloak happens before revealing maneuver, can't reveal dial if you don't set one --> can't decloak)

Stress (death sentence to ship dependent on free cloak action, provided you apply it right or in multiples)

*"apply it right" = before recloak. Combine with Ps 9/10 or just use Rebel captive, which kicks in before ACD.

"**** your green dice" (auto-blaster turret, proximity mine, Darth Vader Crew)

Just make sure you have enough to reliably swat it off the board. If your entire list is sub-PS 9, bring multiples

But it's not a bad thing. It's not as if stress and ion are only effective against the phantom, they're also quite solid against turrets so long as you have the damage output (i.e, don't spam title-less ion Ys)

Panic Attack is an example of a list that is more than ready for both sides of the match-up with four dice independent stress inducers and one arc-independent ionizer backed up by the natural bulk and cost efficiency of 3 B-wings.

I one shot a cloaked Whisper at R3, through an asteroid on the second turn of my game last week. All with a Cartel Spacer w/ HLC.

Green dice suck.

Indeed. I took Whisper to a SC a few weeks ago; made it all the way to the semi-final and was burning my way through a BBBBZ list when I took an intentional collision to allow one shot on me instead of the three shots on me if I decloaked the other direction. With focus (from shooting) but no evade, I rolled all blanks and went down to 1 hull on the first shot on Whisper all game. A few turns later, with only two Bs left, one more shot came in on Whisper. I had my evade counter, I had my focus token, I was cloaked, and I rolled 1 evade vs 3 hits. Two shots lined up in the entire game, 7 blanks rolled on 8 dice, and Whisper is done.

Never trust the green dice.

I'm sorry but I just have to disagree with the idea that it's impossible to outfly a phantom without its pilot making big mistakes. That seems ludicrous to me. It's just a ship. A very good ship, but just another ship. The notion of 'hard counter good phantom players or you can't win without their mistakes' is just something I can't ever agree with because it implies you can never fly a ship in a way that will beat a phantom. It's not like they literally go invisible, they have a finite move set. Predict and outmaneuver, just like any other ship.

I'm sorry but I just have to disagree with the idea that it's impossible to outfly a phantom without its pilot making big mistakes. That seems ludicrous to me. It's just a ship. A very good ship, but just another ship. The notion of 'hard counter good phantom players or you can't win without their mistakes' is just something I can't ever agree with because it implies you can never fly a ship in a way that will beat a phantom. It's not like they literally go invisible, they have a finite move set. Predict and outmaneuver, just like any other ship.

Sadly, it kind of is. It's not because the Phantom unlocks our inner space savant or anything, but because it's just way too ******* easy to fly

Let's take the textbook definition of glass cannon: hits hard but shatters easily. Soontir is a glass cannon, with only 3 hull and an ability to fortify on defensive actions only if he can preform said defensive actions. One bump or obstruction and he's ******.

Now, lets look At Whisper

Is she a Glass Cannon? 4 green dice with a focus is hardly easy to kill, so I'm going to write that assumption the **** off.

Is she vulnerable to blocks? ...hah

1.) The de-cloak occurs before maneuvers, so you can easily derp out of blocks after everyone has moved. Best you can do is limit her options, which require many more ships than normal blocks do.

2.) Got blocked anyway? Flew through an asteriod? Who cares! FCS for free target-lock. ACD for free re-cloak. Pilot ability for free focus.

Again, it's not really about predicting the decloak. Getting Whisper in your arc is easy provided you have enough of them or a decently maneuverable pilot. The problem is actually hitting her with your attacks. Unlike Soontir, who falls immediately to naked green dice if you bump his dumb ass (red manuevers pending), Whisper is like the energizer bunny she just keeps going (target-lock) and going (re-cloak) and going (focus) and going...

You basically need counters to make sure she's fair. In the hands of a novice, Whisper can still be deadly effective. In the hands of a pro, you're basically auto-loss if you didn't pack counters.

You can predict all you like, the issue is that a good Phantom player will plan multiple paths. He doesn't decide on which specific one to take until after you have moved and committed, so it doesn't matter what decision you make he will simply look at what you did and react accordingly. I tend to play two turns out, with my Phantom decloaks chosen to allow shots this turn, the largest number of options next turn, and a way to exfil if things go south the turn after that. It sounds harder than it is, I mostly just make sure that my position doesn't commit me to a particular path, block my own decloaks, fly into a crowd, or lead me to a next-turn position that will. X-Wing isn't chess, there are random and human factors that can allow a game to go either way, but barring those odd outliers a well played Phantom will very, very, very consistently beat lists that aren't equipped for it.

I also find Whisper to be by FAR the easier to outfly and beat if I find myself with a list that isn't prepared for Phantoms. No matter how good her dice are, you can get through them with enough shots. Whisper will "only" have 3 starting position choices and zero heading choices when she moves (her dial is committed). If any one of those is bad (rocks in the way etc.) I can control her by blocking the second option and playing for the third. Echo is something else entirely, with a minimum of 6 different starting positions in two different 90 degree separated orientations. In what I believe is her best configuration (Push the Limit, Adv Sensors, Adv Cloak Dev, Rec Spec) her starting positions are as nearly infinite as makes no difference and she is no longer susceptible to action denial. Echo just sets up and knocks down low PS ship after low PS ship like she is at the target range.

This isn't an anti-Phantom screed. You just need to be prepared for them if you go to a tourney, just like you should be prepared for Swarms and Fat Han. Phantoms are just more extreme than the others, requiring a more dedicated solution.

You can predict all you like, the issue is that a good Phantom player will plan multiple paths. He doesn't decide on which specific one to take until after you have moved and committed, so it doesn't matter what decision you make he will simply look at what you did and react accordingly. I tend to play two turns out, with my Phantom decloaks chosen to allow shots this turn, the largest number of options next turn, and a way to exfil if things go south the turn after that. It sounds harder than it is, I mostly just make sure that my position doesn't commit me to a particular path or block my own decloaks, nor lead me to a next-turn position that will. X-Wing isn't chess, there are random and human factors that can allow a game to go either way, but barring those odd outliers a well played Phantom will very, very, very consistently beat lists that aren't equipped for it.

I also find Whisper to be by FAR the easier to outfly and beat if I find myself with a list that isn't prepared for Phantoms. No matter how good her dice are, you can get through them with enough shots. Echo on the other hand just sets up and knocks down ship after ship like she is at the target range.

I would expect all players to play a few turns ahead. Just because the phantom player is planning outs doesn't mean I can't also see those outs. Maybe that is a skill not enough people have, but there's no hidden information in this game other than the dials before activation. Because of this, assuming equal skill level, both players should see the extra routes, allowing the non-phantom player to cut those off in advance. Whenever I see these discussions about phantoms they're never discussed at equal skill level. Either the phantom player sucks and makes mistakes, or the phantom player is a master Jedi who can blind his opponent to playing the game 2-3 turns in advance. For players who are actually equal skill, they both just need to plan phantom moves a few turns ahead, and it shouldn't be that hard to trap it.

The issue of 4 green dice while cloaked and insane action economy is a different one, and that I'll concede needs some help to combat.

I play weekly against several other worlds top 16 / top 8 players. If one of us brings Echo and the other is not prepared, the Phantom player will win 90+ percent of the time. It isn't magic, it's just that one of us wasn't prepared. For this reason, we tend not to play Echo in league matches. Perhaps this is only due to group think, but I doubt it. Many of us travel pretty extensively as well, so we are heavily influenced by the meta at large.

I won the Des Moines Store Championship a couple weeks ago where several other world class players were on hand, including one world champion, with an 87 point two Phantom list. I'm not THAT good, I just gambled on the field being unprepared for the Phantoms and as it turned out that was for the most part true. I defeated an exact copy of Paul's championship Fat Han list in the hands of a very competent player in the final. There was one other player in the tourney with the same list I was flying. The two of us lost a combined total of 3 games, both of us lost once to the other (he won in Swiss and I eliminated him in top 4) and he lost once in Swiss to Victor with Heaver's Fat Han that I beat in the final. In all 5 rounds of Swiss plus top 8 elimination we lost ONE game to a non-Phantom list but beat it once as well, and it had the hard counter. That means it went 12/13 on the day (ignoring the mirror match).

Bottom line is that you should be prepared for Echo if you want to maximize your chances of winning a given tournament.

Edit: Feedback array is awesome for toning down your Phantom problems, as is the new and improved Prox Mine.

When competing, you should always plan for what is popular in your local meta; that's just some good common sense. Whisper, Echo and Han still have their places and if FFG continues to do its job correctly, they still will in waves to come (alongside other pilots who will rise to the top).

As others have said, however, wave 6 added lots of elements to deal with those particular pilots while introducing new and exciting combos that can prove just as effective. Some give you a chance to fight on more equal terms while others could be considered hard counters.

I play dual IG-88 and in the past month, I have worked hard to find a combination of upgrades that fit my play style, offer me advantages against the above pilots and that I have fun playing. I'm still fine tuning my maneuvers, asteroid placements and starting positions (more precisely, making that mid-range 6 pilot skill rating work for me), but against a pilot of the same skill / preparation, I can reasonably win half the time. Against a player of lesser skill or preparation (because he did not bother learning how IG-88 can move or anticipate how my upgrades work together), I'll win 75% of the time. It's all a matter of practice, training and building a list that works for you

So, exactly how many store championships need to be won by Awing swarms, BBBZ, XXXZZZ, ect. before we realize that phantoms are not auto win, even against low PS ships?

Results are often underpinned by lucky matchups. If a Phantom players gets hard countered in the first and second rounds, then the A, B and XZ swarms can coast through to the end. But a competently flown Phantom list should have a good shot at murdering all those lists, head-to-head (assuming equal skills between opponents, and average dice rolling for each).

Which is exactly why I asked how many have to be won by things other than phantoms before people stop calling it a statistical outlier, and start calling it the norm. People keep calling phantoms auto win, and yet.......

Tony, I don't really think that's what most reasonable arguments about with the phantom purport (that it's an "autowin"). It's much more about how it, as a single ship, drastically shrinks the number of viable competitive builds.

Uh, what forums have you been rading dude? Lol. Let's be real, every thread talking about phantoms has at least one person saying "phantoms win against everything" or "phantoms always win against swarms" neither of which is true. Also saying it shrinks the number of viable builds isn't even true. It does to some extent because people freak out about them and only run hard counters instead of taking the time to learn to fly against them with other lists. Any list can beat them, you don't need to change the list, you need to change your tactics. And no one does. It's easier to cry about them and only run hard counters that take no new skills to win. Also, even if you need hard counters, there are so many hard counters to phantoms now.

Hence my use of the phrase "reasonable arguments." I wasn't talking about the arguments of hyperbole that it "can't be beaten" and it does take skill to fly well, so mistakes that are made by phantom players are often incredibly costly (thankfully).

You and I don't have a lot of regular phantom players in the Twin Cities, and that's likely because most people fly hard counters to them on a regular basis, though there are a couple. It's a very different game, in my experience, if you play someone that is very good with them and an uphill battle if your list doesn't have a good counter (no matter how well you fly that list yourself).

I do hope you're right that scum will offer a few more tricks to depress it's usage a bit more and thus widen out the usage of other types of ships. I think it will be interesting to see if it's still a dominant ship by regionals for sure.

Anyway... Even though we don't have a lot of phantom players here, every store championship that I've been to has had at least one, usually a few, and yet the only time I've seen one win one is the one I won, and although the phantom was good for me... It was the rear admiral that did all the real work and won me most of my games. I would argue that fat turrets have been more meta defining through wave 5 than phantoms are. You see them a lot more, they take the same amount of planning for, and the have been more successful from what I've seen of SC results from all over. Don't get me wrong, I agree that the phantom is one of the most powerful ships out right now, but they are far from the gods that everyone seems to make them out to be. having a hard counter makes it easier to take them out, but isn't neccessary. The same could be said for any ship.

Don't forget autoblaster turrets. They're cheap area denial weapons; the psychological factor alone makes them pretty decent for their points.

First off, sorry about the super nested nature of this convo, but I'm on my iPad and for some reason deleting half this stuff is a pain. And I'm lazy.

Anyway... Even though we don't have a lot of phantom players here, every store championship that I've been to has had at least one, usually a few, and yet the only time I've seen one win one is the one I won, and although the phantom was good for me... It was the rear admiral that did all the real work and won me most of my games. I would argue that fat turrets have been more meta defining through wave 5 than phantoms are. You see them a lot more, they take the same amount of planning for, and the have been more successful from what I've seen of SC results from all over. Don't get me wrong, I agree that the phantom is one of the most powerful ships out right now, but they are far from the gods that everyone seems to make them out to be. having a hard counter makes it easier to take them out, but isn't neccessary. The same could be said for any ship.

No worries.

Joe won the first store championship with one and then took the rest of them off. Chris won in Mankato with phantom/deci, beating Leebo/Chewie in the final despite having to face a full Chewie and being damaged himself. You make three that I know of. One of the reasons I feel the way I do is because of playing and talking with Chris and his list a couple of times, and our conversations about the phantom (EDIT: which are similar to KOs perspective) . I was Chris's only loss in Mankato and that was in Swiss.

I won't disagree that fat turrets are more prevalent, especially locally, but there are a much wider variety of builds that can beat them than a phantom, imo, and I'd argue that turrets define the meta less because they are harder to beat and more because of the phantom. It's very hard to combat both in the same list.

I play weekly against several other worlds top 16 / top 8 players. If one of us brings Echo and the other is not prepared, the Phantom player will win 90+ percent of the time. It isn't magic, it's just that one of us wasn't prepared. For this reason, we tend not to play Echo in league matches. Perhaps this is only due to group think, but I doubt it. Many of us travel pretty extensively as well, so we are heavily influenced by the meta at large.

I won the Des Moines Store Championship a couple weeks ago where several other world class players were on hand, including one world champion, with an 87 point two Phantom list. I'm not THAT good, I just gambled on the field being unprepared for the Phantoms and as it turned out that was for the most part true. I defeated an exact copy of Paul's championship Fat Han list in the hands of a very competent player in the final. There was one other player in the tourney with the same list I was flying. The two of us lost a combined total of 3 games, both of us lost once to the other (he won in Swiss and I eliminated him in top 4) and he lost once in Swiss to Victor with Heaver's Fat Han that I beat in the final. In all 5 rounds of Swiss plus top 8 elimination we lost ONE game to a non-Phantom list but beat it once as well, and it had the hard counter. That means it went 12/13 on the day (ignoring the mirror match).

Bottom line is that you should be prepared for Echo if you want to maximize your chances of winning a given tournament.

Edit: Feedback array is awesome for toning down your Phantom problems, as is the new and improved Prox Mine.

I think this post is very very good at explaining a big strength of the phantom. People see them and if they don't have the existing counters to phantoms they give up in their mind, even if just subconsciously. This sort of thing becomes especially true usually for high level players who are as you say, heavily influenced by the meta. Because of this, I think the best way to best a phantom is to play against it like any other ship, and dodge the mental block.

If you think this is not the case, then the phantom must be the most broken ship in the game and FFG should patch it asap, as you took down a strong field without much trouble while playing 13 points down.

As I said before, no amount of skill will beat four green dice + focus. No amount of mental fortitude will do the job either

As for the idea of people finding it broken, that brings up an interesting point. The phantom is only "arguably" broken, and there are three big reasons for that:

1.) Specific counters exist

2.) A wide variety of said counters exist

3.) Said counters are generally effective and do not hamstring you against other squads

The underlined an bolded point is imo the most important. If Phantoms could only be countered by some obscure upgrade or some upgrade that made you suck ass against everything else, it would be more broken than a proclean vase on the tip of a nuclear warhead.

Fortunately, Phantoms do not single-handedly butcher list creativity, they only influence it. In the beginning of Wave 5, where it seemed only turrets could touch them (biggest fallacy ever...), I could understand the claims that they were objectively overpowered, but we have a laundry list of things that are effective against them and still effective against the vast majority of other ships

So, incredibly powerful? Yes. Broken? No.

This means they have to be accounted for and countered, but that they don't completely dominate the game by themselves.

Just to clarify, when I said we were influenced by the meta at large I meant by x-wing play styles of all types because we often play outside of our home group. Also, I do agree that many people give up subconsciously when they see a Phantom, but I would disagree that the top players do. We all know exactly what makes them tick, and we have lost enough running them (and beat them ourselves) to know they aren't invincible, so we play the games out with every intention of winning. That it is so difficult (when unprepared) is not a testament to psychology, it is a testament to the relative merits of the ship. It is also important to note that it isn't just one of us having this success, we are all of similar skill and the guy with Echo tends to dominate low to mid PS lists no matter who is on either end.

Also, I wasn't 13 points "down". Those 13 points were left off the table because of the MoV system. An additional TIE doesn't add enough to justify the 12 points of MoV lost every round.

I agree that the Phantom is beatable, I also agree that it is not OP. It is however by far the most unbalanced ship in the game, it dominates lists that are not prepared for it more thoroughly than any other ship in the game.

Took down a Whisper+VI - Echo+VI - shuttle+hvy laser cannon list tonight with 3 x Royal Guard Interceptors+PtL and a Vader Shuttle. That is all.

In the beginning of Wave 5, where it seemed only turrets could touch them (biggest fallacy ever).... we have a laundry list of things that are effective against them and still effective against the vast majority of other ships... So, incredibly powerful? Yes. Broken? No.

This exactly sums up what I'm trying to say.

I agree that the Phantom is beatable, I also agree that it is not OP. It is however by far the most unbalanced ship in the game, it dominates lists that are not prepared for it more thoroughly than any other ship in the game.

I think it's OP, but this is the main reason why I don't like the super phantom. When I have 5 Tie Fighters left and my opponent has a super Phantom on the table still, I'm losing unless it goes to time in the next round or two. Yes, I could fly roark and chain swarm tactics but maybe I don't feel like playing hard counter lists all the time, and I don't find fat turret lists appealing either. Maybe I feel like playing mid-PS stuff like Royal Guards.

I feel that unless I specifically counter it, the only times I beat one are by killing whatever is accompanying it and winning on time, or playing against someone who is terrible with it and asteroids it.

And then someone will say, "Just block the decloak lanes". The super Phantom is the hardest ship in the game to block.

Another thing that is irritating to me is that I actually play generic Phantoms. The cloak and decloak manuevers add a lot of fun and tactics to the game when you actually have to choose between cloaking and firing. Phantoms without ACD are still good, but they're actually balanced. So seeing how fun they are to play as if they were balanced just pisses me off.

Ok, I am fully aware that this falls in the "dumb luck" category, but I wanted to share an experience from a game I just played. My opponent was playing RAC and Echo against my attempt at a scum 2 firespray list (kath and emon).

My opponent had Echo cloaked at range 3 of Emon, coming head on and preparing to de cloak and rip into whichever firespray was a better target after I moved. So, lower ps finally being useful, I pulled off the slingshot, 3 turn and a 3 turn prox mine barely touching Echo's base. 2 hits and a crit (direct hit) later, and Echo was a smoking ruin and my opponent's jaw literally dropped.

Again, I know this was super lucky, and required echo being in the right place in the right time, my opponent never facing emon before (he told me he knew the pilot ability but didn't think it through and wasn't prepared for that) AND the most clutch dice roll I've ever had. All that being said, Phantoms can be killed. No one calls stealth device a-wings invincible or broken, and I will never let green dice dissuade me. I've had my a-wings blown apart by HLCs far too often...

Plenty of tools exist now to take them out, and I have a feeling that Emon may be a decent answer even against prepared opponents. With his slingshot he can actually move AND 'Attack' before the phantom even gets to decloak.

P.S. Kath with PtL, EU and K4 is one of the most fun ships I have ever flown in this game. That really has no bearing on this topic, but I think FFG really nailed it with scum.

I agree that the Phantom is beatable, I also agree that it is not OP. It is however by far the most unbalanced ship in the game, it dominates lists that are not prepared for it more thoroughly than any other ship in the game.

I think it's OP.... When I have 5 Tie Fighters left and my opponent has a super Phantom on the table still, I'm losing unless it goes to time in the next round or two.... unless I specifically counter it, the only times I beat one are by killing whatever is accompanying it and winning on time, or playing against someone who is terrible with it and asteroids it.

and that sums up what I don't agree with, and was the point of my original post. you can beat them with that, and people do... just stop assuming you are already junked by the matchup. I really think the fear is what causes most of these games to turn into self-fulfilling prophecies.

Did we btw come to a consensus? Does Fat Han and Whisper 5 tie have good matchups to current hot builds? 2 IG, 4 Rebel Control, Xizor builds? etc?