The Phantom nerf made the lower PS ships not worth playing.

The lower PS phantom pilots weren't worth playing before the nerf. If anything, the change made them more viable as now you can use them as blockers and decloak into someone's way.

It might be just me, but using a base 25pt ship before upgrades as a blocker seems like crazy pills.

As everyone has said, before any dial is revealed, you choose to decloak, direction etc. I like Echo, her bank mechanic can be hard to predict properly though.

As in the Echo player's prediction?

I was planning her to be toting Kallus, acting as my assassin vs. my opponent's toughest ship (usually Bossk's party bus).

FFG messed up a bit, giving whipster both PS7 and a better ability

so, even with VI your Echo will die to anything PS9+ automatically.

you might use Decoy and SP12 Tie, though, but that's not that cool as it sounds, because it's a r1-2 leash and just 2 damage and PS12 is gone

in a 300-point match, consider taking cheap PS3 guys with just evade-giving mods (after decloak) and SJs

paired with Jax and Gozanthi, you might find them the ultimate alpha strike of Epic play.