So, I haven't seen anything on them since the cloaking nerf.
Does anyone still fly em? I'm considering it for tomorrow's game.

Also, what change was made to the mechanic? It's been a long while, so I don't quite remember

Instead of decloaking right before you reveal your dial, you can only decloak before the first dial is revealed.

A Decimator/Whisper build made it through to Top 16 (and got unlucky not making it to Top 8).

Instead of decloaking right before you reveal your dial, you can only decloak before the first dial is revealed.

A Decimator/Whisper build made it through to Top 16 (and got unlucky not making it to Top 8).

That's quite the change, but it should be alright I suppose. Thanks for the reminder!

So, I haven't seen anything on them since the cloaking nerf.

Does anyone still fly em? I'm considering it for tomorrow's game.

Also, what change was made to the mechanic? It's been a long while, so I don't quite remember

They're still very good.

Still around; they just take a bit more skill to fly rather than absolutely dominating their opponents. I've had fun & success with both generic and named phantoms since the mechanic change.

I fly a 2 delta sigma list right now. Not bad with it either, this is all before the Imperial veterans.

Plus Whisper is still awesome!

I use my sigma to block and i be annoying! It fun! The change makes it way more possible now.

Phantoms are still great. It's just as HawkStrike said, they now require a little more skill to fly and make the most of the decloak.

Anything with higher PS than you is just a pain in the ass. Really an annoying mechanic honestly. Not unbeatable. Totally beatable. Just annoying.

Most lower PS stuff is a piece of cake. Esp if not flown perfectly.

Sigmas with Sensor Jammers eat the TLT Y-Wings for breakfast.

Echo still gives both players a headache.

Echo still gives both players a headache.

Yeah, as I say to my opponents about Echo "you don't know where he's going, I don't know where he's going, no one knows where he's going!"

I flew a whisper/vessery list to a couple tournaments a few months ago, did pretty well against normal x wing lists or not perfectly optimised ones, got decked by super x wing lists though.

Echo's pilot ability ought to read "Before executing your maneuver, roll 3 attack dice. If any [CRITS] are rolled, fly Echo off the board"

Specifically, the old text was "before you reveal your maneuver dial". The new text is something like "at the beginning of the activation phase". This has two primary effects. The 'negative' is that you no longer have quite the utility you had before, and by broadcasting what direction you decloak in, it's possible your maneuver becomes much more predictable for even low PS ships.

On the plus side, it's now much more difficult to block your decloak, and since decloaking is no longer dependent on revealing a dial, you may decloak even when ioned.

I've heard a lot of people find great success with Phantom Aces as one of the two aces you take in a Palpmobile build.

Yeah, I've enjoyed taking a bare whisper out alongside the palp (VI&ACD only)... Whisper is still a power ship, it's just that Poe mashes her up pretty seriously, and that ps10 Poe build is all over the place since world's, at least in my area.

Ditto the stress hog - hard to avoid that big old range-3 arc, and once you've eaten a double stress, you'll find it hard to keep the phantom on the board. Cloak down, you're super predictable, and hunting season is open!

Still a great ship, still a shed ton of fun to fly, though.

Yeah, I've enjoyed taking a bare whisper out alongside the palp (VI&ACD only)... Whisper is still a power ship, it's just that Poe mashes her up pretty seriously, and that ps10 Poe build is all over the place since world's, at least in my area.

Ditto the stress hog - hard to avoid that big old range-3 arc, and once you've eaten a double stress, you'll find it hard to keep the phantom on the board. Cloak down, you're super predictable, and hunting season is open!

Still a great ship, still a shed ton of fun to fly, though.

I've had some success with Whipser(VI, FCS, ACD, Intel Agent)/Chiraneau(VI, Vader, Gunner, Engine Upgrade), but you really do have to focus fire with Chiraneau on the big threats and not be afraid of killing him entirely to do it.

It's probably going to be my tournament list for the upcoming season, at least until Imp Vets comes out at which point I'm considering something with Defender/Punisher/TIE Shuttle.

People threw in the towel but they are still very good.

Practice that list though before for sure to get the new changes down before your tournament.

Kallus might give the Phantom a bit of a boost against aces. Poe doesn't particularly want to spend that focus token on the offense, and with Kallus and an evade token, Whisper should be quite safe against his attack.

From my limited experience, the Phantom's problem isn't Poe and other high-defense aces, it's stresshogs. As long as the Rebel player is unpredictable with his R3A2 or good at motion-predicting the Phantom, he can just laugh at it.

The opposite is also true, if you can park a decimator or four tie/fos in front of R3A2 and blast it before it does anything, the rest of the game shouldn't be too hard. Even when it's down to Poe/Corran versus Whisper, you mobility should still give you an advantage despite their higher PS.

Stress and aces, especially together, can keep them in check. But the phantom is still very good.

I think it's the tlt that killed the Phantoms

Two ywings can eat through those evade dice and small amount of hp pretty fast.

I'd love to take it to a tournament but with the amount of tlt I consider it mire suicide

Sensor Jammer does a pretty good job of helping Phantoms vs Y-wing TLTs; the only down side being it comes in the Lambda shuttle only at the moment.

They're good, they just no longer autowin you games anymore. They fly like every other Acewing ship now. They're powerful but you won't be able to solo down entire lists with it anymore.

The nerf was actually a stealth buff for the generics. The ships that the generic Phantoms had the most trouble with were the pre-nerf named Phantoms haha, so now that they're not in every other squad a Sigma Squadron with ACD is a decent 29 points. Most lists these days have at least one PS 2 ship. Tempest Squadrons, Blue Squadron, (Stresshog) Gold Squadron, and Warden Squadron K-Wings are real prevalent so PS 3 or 5 bids are relevant.

Against TLT they have decent counter options like Rec Spec and Sensor Jammer.

I found when running Whisper in a recent tournament with a defensive build of Sensor Jammer and Rebel Captive that she/he suffers for the lack of red dice modification. The classic load out of VI, ACD, FCS works much better as the ship is a priority target and has a high chance of being focus targeted and brought down. Gunner is an option but at 5 points makes the phantom even more of a target. Also, with Sensor Jammer the opponent quickly learns to hold their focus until you have to commit which admittedly denies them use for their attack but does not really reduce the damage coming in to the phantom.

I found when running Whisper in a recent tournament with a defensive build of Sensor Jammer and Rebel Captive that she/he suffers for the lack of red dice modification. The classic load out of VI, ACD, FCS works much better as the ship is a priority target and has a high chance of being focus targeted and brought down. Gunner is an option but at 5 points makes the phantom even more of a target. Also, with Sensor Jammer the opponent quickly learns to hold their focus until you have to commit which admittedly denies them use for their attack but does not really reduce the damage coming in to the phantom.

Rather than Reb Cap, go with Recon Spec.

Same points, and you get an offensive focus with 2x defensive.