EPTThe funnest phantom matches, in my experience, have been ones just with my own group of friends. You begin to learn how people react and the strategy and deception gets a little more intense. To play like this (in-house, as i like to call it), you need a lot of friends who play phantom. I have friends who play sc, but few played phantom, so I made this guide for them to direct them in this great game. Upon viewing the finished product, i felt the information contained should be shared with more people, and so here it is, for your learning:
Map Specifics:+ Show Spoiler +
SC2 custom maps include many many many variants of the glorious phantom. The most popular is "Phantom Mode". This guide will discuss general strategies in phantom as a phantom or slayer that will apply to nearly all variants, but will include many specifics to "Phantom Mode" and Phantom Mode's Day/Night gamemode. The Day/Night mode, in my experience, is the best and allows for the most dynamic gameplay. I apologize that I am quite particular and that therefore much of this may not be applicable for whichever game type you prefer.
THE ART OF WINNING A PHANTOM MATCH - AS PHANTOM
+ Show Spoiler +
These are the following 3 strategies i find most effective, adapt as desired:
1) Strike early and often (my option of choice)
How to:+ Show Spoiler +
2) Deception
How to:+ Show Spoiler +
3) The LONG haul
How to:+ Show Spoiler +
1) Strike early and often (my option of choice)
How to:+ Show Spoiler +
-In the very beginning tech to tier 1.5 ASAP; this is warpgate tech for toss, MM with stim and shields for terran, and ling roach with speed on both for zerg.
-Grab one(2 for zerg) expansion(s) in the midst of teching
-Do not slow down your tech process and do not build units, just peons. no one will be attacking you anyways- you're phantom.
-If timed correctly the first night should hit right when you've gotten the sufficient tech (warpgate/roach and ling speed/stim and shield)
-As soon as night falls, make TONS of additional unit producing structures(~10-15 warpgates/~10-15 barracks/~4-6 hatcheries). With your existing unit producing structures pump units like mad.
-Upon unit producing structure completion make epic huge army
-Upon epic huge army, push across the map
-Kill kill kill kill kill kill kill
-If timed correctly, day will rise right AFTER you've taken out a base (person has already told everyone that you are phantom). if timed poorly day will rise right BEFORE you reach the first base. Either way the night got done what needed getting done - building up and moving into position before people have time to plot against you.
-After this first mega push you will probably be close to killing one of the slayers. Do your best to completely wipe out a player, if you kill all their main buildings (nexus, CC, hatch) then the game will start pinging the remaining buildings and units for you to kill.
-After your first mega push you will still be making units - in the early part of your push you may send some to reinforce as you see fit but you should also allocate some defensive units for defense and make static defense (sentry-cannon/siege tank PF/queen-roach-spine). After you have sufficient defense reinforce the main army and keep killing
-Of course adapt to the enemy and tech down what path you feel you should tech down.
-At some point invest in some sort of flying units to find enemy expos and take them out
-Side notes: It is possible to tech to tier 2 for your main army before first night fall. You can do that too, I just prefer the earlier stuff. to each their own. If you wait for the second nightfall however, you have plenty of time to get ANY tech you want, in fact, the second night push is probably better than the first night push. experiment of course...
-That's all folks.
-Grab one(2 for zerg) expansion(s) in the midst of teching
-Do not slow down your tech process and do not build units, just peons. no one will be attacking you anyways- you're phantom.
-If timed correctly the first night should hit right when you've gotten the sufficient tech (warpgate/roach and ling speed/stim and shield)
-As soon as night falls, make TONS of additional unit producing structures(~10-15 warpgates/~10-15 barracks/~4-6 hatcheries). With your existing unit producing structures pump units like mad.
-Upon unit producing structure completion make epic huge army
-Upon epic huge army, push across the map
-Kill kill kill kill kill kill kill
-If timed correctly, day will rise right AFTER you've taken out a base (person has already told everyone that you are phantom). if timed poorly day will rise right BEFORE you reach the first base. Either way the night got done what needed getting done - building up and moving into position before people have time to plot against you.
-After this first mega push you will probably be close to killing one of the slayers. Do your best to completely wipe out a player, if you kill all their main buildings (nexus, CC, hatch) then the game will start pinging the remaining buildings and units for you to kill.
-After your first mega push you will still be making units - in the early part of your push you may send some to reinforce as you see fit but you should also allocate some defensive units for defense and make static defense (sentry-cannon/siege tank PF/queen-roach-spine). After you have sufficient defense reinforce the main army and keep killing
-Of course adapt to the enemy and tech down what path you feel you should tech down.
-At some point invest in some sort of flying units to find enemy expos and take them out
-Side notes: It is possible to tech to tier 2 for your main army before first night fall. You can do that too, I just prefer the earlier stuff. to each their own. If you wait for the second nightfall however, you have plenty of time to get ANY tech you want, in fact, the second night push is probably better than the first night push. experiment of course...
-That's all folks.
2) Deception
How to:+ Show Spoiler +
-Macro hard. plan out what your optimal unit composition is and go for it. get fast upgrades and many expos. the more expos you take the less your enemies have. When choosing optimal unit comp try to get very mobile units. you can make a slow doom fleet of BC if you want but remember they won't be able to pull back to defend.
-Upon desired mega army/airforce begin to talk... a lot. Tell everyone how mad you are that the phantom isn't doing anything and that you're getting impatient. Begin to overanalyse everything. Ex: "Chill has 27 OCs... therefore he must be phantom"
-Begin to private chat various people and convince them(person 'A') that someone else(person 'B') is phantom and you two need to team up and kill that person 'B'.
-Upon 'lucky', go with said person 'A' to said other person 'B's base and kill person 'B'. while in the engagement try to let person 'A' take most of the hits. This move will eliminate one player from your problems and weaken another.
-Cue backstab. Right before you finish person 'B', unally person 'A' who helped you kill person 'B'. This is optimal because your army has a reason to be next to his army and he won't be expecting you to attack. Given that his army is already weak from the engagement and you have about a 5 second head start on attacking him (time it takes to notice attack and type "-unally ..." or click alliances and do that thing is about 5 sec), you should promptly crush that army.
-If you are playing with 4 people total or less, you are now easily winning as you have taken one man out and crushed the army of another. Go forth and phantom pwn some nubs. **be mindful of seeker missiles**
-If you are playing with 5 people total you're kind of in an uphilll battle to begin with but best of luck to you, maybe your phantom macro shall pull in for the win.
-If you are playing with 6 or more people total then that means there are 2 phantoms. at this time declare your phantomitude to the world. The other phantom shall now come forth to strike and it will be 2 phantom vs. 2-4 slayers and pallies. You can take them...
-gg
-Upon desired mega army/airforce begin to talk... a lot. Tell everyone how mad you are that the phantom isn't doing anything and that you're getting impatient. Begin to overanalyse everything. Ex: "Chill has 27 OCs... therefore he must be phantom"
-Begin to private chat various people and convince them(person 'A') that someone else(person 'B') is phantom and you two need to team up and kill that person 'B'.
-Upon 'lucky', go with said person 'A' to said other person 'B's base and kill person 'B'. while in the engagement try to let person 'A' take most of the hits. This move will eliminate one player from your problems and weaken another.
-Cue backstab. Right before you finish person 'B', unally person 'A' who helped you kill person 'B'. This is optimal because your army has a reason to be next to his army and he won't be expecting you to attack. Given that his army is already weak from the engagement and you have about a 5 second head start on attacking him (time it takes to notice attack and type "-unally ..." or click alliances and do that thing is about 5 sec), you should promptly crush that army.
-If you are playing with 4 people total or less, you are now easily winning as you have taken one man out and crushed the army of another. Go forth and phantom pwn some nubs. **be mindful of seeker missiles**
-If you are playing with 5 people total you're kind of in an uphilll battle to begin with but best of luck to you, maybe your phantom macro shall pull in for the win.
-If you are playing with 6 or more people total then that means there are 2 phantoms. at this time declare your phantomitude to the world. The other phantom shall now come forth to strike and it will be 2 phantom vs. 2-4 slayers and pallies. You can take them...
-gg
3) The LONG haul
How to:+ Show Spoiler +
-(same first step for the deception strat
Macro hard. plan out what your optimal unit comp is and go for it. get fast upgrades and many expos. the more you take the less your enemies have. When choosing optimal unit comp try to get very mobile units. you can make a slow doom fleet of BC if you want but remember they won't be able to pull back to defend.
-Quite opposite to the deception strategy SAY NOTHING. people will be getting antsy and the less you say the less they think about you and consider you being it. be benevolent and quiet.
-Make a well organized set of bases where you will be able to defend with minimum army and produce army like crazy. establish ways to retreat quickly (MS with mass recall or extreme nydus networks all over the place). Mind that you will not only need to defend with minimum units but also defend with rediculous effectiveness. you will have to hold off potentially entire 200/200 armies. psi-storm, seeker missiles, nukes, fungal growths are all great.
-Wait a LONG time (until phantom is allotted circa 350-400 supply and rediculous income).- create one epic awesome 200/400 army.wait until darkness. produce 150-200 more army and max out 350/350 or whatever the cap is at that time. immediately move out toward an opponent.
-Try to attack with one doom fleet of 300 supply and one harass fleet of 50-100 supply. te doom fleet kills armies the harass fleet takes out unit production and expos and chases down dying enemies.
-Hopefully the doom fleet wins. gg
-Side note 1) if you face a well cooridinate attack by 2-3 of your opponent slayers against your doom fleet then attempt to retreat via Mass Recall or nydus. If you will still lose your army before you can retreat to defenses or you are a terran player, then just attack and hope you weaken them as much as they will weaken you. also send your harassing fleet to one of their bases. if their armies are busy attacking yours there will be little defense.
-Side note 2) if there are two phantoms then this strategy is amplified because waiting this long also means the phantoms will be revealed to each other. Chat with your partner phantom and make sure he follows the exact same doom fleet strategy as you. If in that first night you both attack and you both nearly eliminate one player then you've kind of already won (2 phantoms that are organized with 700-800 supply vs. unorganized 600-800 supply from 3-4 slayers or palladins)
-Side note 3) please for the love of all that is good in this world do not do this strategy. No one likes to sit at a computer for an hour waiting for the battle to start. I will kill you ( in the game of course).
Macro hard. plan out what your optimal unit comp is and go for it. get fast upgrades and many expos. the more you take the less your enemies have. When choosing optimal unit comp try to get very mobile units. you can make a slow doom fleet of BC if you want but remember they won't be able to pull back to defend.-Quite opposite to the deception strategy SAY NOTHING. people will be getting antsy and the less you say the less they think about you and consider you being it. be benevolent and quiet.
-Make a well organized set of bases where you will be able to defend with minimum army and produce army like crazy. establish ways to retreat quickly (MS with mass recall or extreme nydus networks all over the place). Mind that you will not only need to defend with minimum units but also defend with rediculous effectiveness. you will have to hold off potentially entire 200/200 armies. psi-storm, seeker missiles, nukes, fungal growths are all great.
-Wait a LONG time (until phantom is allotted circa 350-400 supply and rediculous income).- create one epic awesome 200/400 army.wait until darkness. produce 150-200 more army and max out 350/350 or whatever the cap is at that time. immediately move out toward an opponent.
-Try to attack with one doom fleet of 300 supply and one harass fleet of 50-100 supply. te doom fleet kills armies the harass fleet takes out unit production and expos and chases down dying enemies.
-Hopefully the doom fleet wins. gg
-Side note 1) if you face a well cooridinate attack by 2-3 of your opponent slayers against your doom fleet then attempt to retreat via Mass Recall or nydus. If you will still lose your army before you can retreat to defenses or you are a terran player, then just attack and hope you weaken them as much as they will weaken you. also send your harassing fleet to one of their bases. if their armies are busy attacking yours there will be little defense.
-Side note 2) if there are two phantoms then this strategy is amplified because waiting this long also means the phantoms will be revealed to each other. Chat with your partner phantom and make sure he follows the exact same doom fleet strategy as you. If in that first night you both attack and you both nearly eliminate one player then you've kind of already won (2 phantoms that are organized with 700-800 supply vs. unorganized 600-800 supply from 3-4 slayers or palladins)
-Side note 3) please for the love of all that is good in this world do not do this strategy. No one likes to sit at a computer for an hour waiting for the battle to start. I will kill you ( in the game of course).
THE ART OF SLAYING THE PHANTOM
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As discussed the phantom really has a lot of options before him - unfortunately you, as a slayer or pally has to prepare for all of these strategies. Defense against the phantom is less straight forward than strats as the phantom. Thus this will be a little more haphazard.
First:
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Consider some sort of defense by the first night. Most don't attack on the first night (but they should) but it helps to be prepared. Or you could just be bold and double expo before pool/gate/rax/whatever =D. This defense can be an actual army or maybe just a few sentries to hold off long enough to get more sentries to be able to put up infinite Force fields until the attacking phantom leaves or an allied army helps you. The best option is usually some sort of wall with units behind it. To each their own, just have SOMETHING. The longer you hold off an attacking phantom in the earlier game the more time you give your allies to build a countering army. Make sure to tell your allies things like unit composition and army location (via ping (alt click on mini map)). In fact this sort of stuff applies any time you get attacked by the phantom, always communicate with your allies.
Second:
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If it is not you being attacked but an ally, you have a few options before you:
1) Attack the phantom's army. If you think you can take him, then you can of course go and save your ally. yay!
2) Attack the phantom's main base. By far the best option IMO, attacking the phantom's main puts him in a precarious position. It doesn't matter how epic the doom fleet/army he has, almost always, that doom fleet/army will need reinforcements and thus will need unit producing structures. The phantom will always have money GO FOR THE UNIT PRODUCTION, NOT THE PEONS. in normal starcraft you kill the opponent's economy and you win. In phantom he has his own economy, you have to kill his ability to make units. If you can't make units, not only can you not reinforce, but this also means you can't adjust unit composition to adapt. this allows the slayers to make a force that can counter that phantom army/fleet. As it turns out, this kind of attack on the phantoms main is so crushing to him that he will nearly always retreat to save his base. Thus you have inadvertantly also saved your ally =D. If you retreat from the phantom's base at the right time you can save your army, have saved your ally, and inflicted the damage on the phantom you needed to.
3) Build up. This option only applies if the phantom's attack is in the early game, but never the less, important to note. If you know what the phantom's unit comp is, you can tech up to a good position where you know you will be able to beat his army. You can make a death ball (and make it a good one), wait for the phantom to get in a weak position and then strike. then follow up by going to his main. always go for the main. you want unit production yes, but it might also be smart to go for key tech buildings.
1) Attack the phantom's army. If you think you can take him, then you can of course go and save your ally. yay!
2) Attack the phantom's main base. By far the best option IMO, attacking the phantom's main puts him in a precarious position. It doesn't matter how epic the doom fleet/army he has, almost always, that doom fleet/army will need reinforcements and thus will need unit producing structures. The phantom will always have money GO FOR THE UNIT PRODUCTION, NOT THE PEONS. in normal starcraft you kill the opponent's economy and you win. In phantom he has his own economy, you have to kill his ability to make units. If you can't make units, not only can you not reinforce, but this also means you can't adjust unit composition to adapt. this allows the slayers to make a force that can counter that phantom army/fleet. As it turns out, this kind of attack on the phantoms main is so crushing to him that he will nearly always retreat to save his base. Thus you have inadvertantly also saved your ally =D. If you retreat from the phantom's base at the right time you can save your army, have saved your ally, and inflicted the damage on the phantom you needed to.
3) Build up. This option only applies if the phantom's attack is in the early game, but never the less, important to note. If you know what the phantom's unit comp is, you can tech up to a good position where you know you will be able to beat his army. You can make a death ball (and make it a good one), wait for the phantom to get in a weak position and then strike. then follow up by going to his main. always go for the main. you want unit production yes, but it might also be smart to go for key tech buildings.
Third:
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Remember to look for the phantom. (don't get distracted on macro)
-Slayers saturate their expos heavily whereas phantoms often forget to because they don't need to and want the supply for army.
-Slayers usually don't go straight for attacking tech but get expos first. A rush to warpgate tech instead of nexus first could be an indication of phantom. depends on the player. know your self. and KNOW YOUR ENEMY.
-Watch your opponent. Send scouts into everyone's base at first night fall. Knowledge is power.
-Have obs or overlords follow opponent armies since they do not detract much supply from your army (if any(zerg)). If terran, excessive scans might be a better strategy(42 OC strat ftw).
-If you observe suspicious activity from the phantom you might want to question him about it publically.
-If you observe something beyond suspicious (they HAVE to be it), then do NOT question him about it AT ALL. be quiet. If you know he doesn't know you know he's the phantom then you're in a lot better spot than if you know he knows you know he's it. When the phantom is exposed he usually gets more aggressive, giving you less time to plan and consolidate forces with your allies. Whisper chat with your allies and create large armies that are ready to move. Plan who will attack the phantoms base and who will attack the phantoms army when he moves out. It might benefit to do a pre-emptive strike.
-Slayers saturate their expos heavily whereas phantoms often forget to because they don't need to and want the supply for army.
-Slayers usually don't go straight for attacking tech but get expos first. A rush to warpgate tech instead of nexus first could be an indication of phantom. depends on the player. know your self. and KNOW YOUR ENEMY.
-Watch your opponent. Send scouts into everyone's base at first night fall. Knowledge is power.
-Have obs or overlords follow opponent armies since they do not detract much supply from your army (if any(zerg)). If terran, excessive scans might be a better strategy(42 OC strat ftw).
-If you observe suspicious activity from the phantom you might want to question him about it publically.
-If you observe something beyond suspicious (they HAVE to be it), then do NOT question him about it AT ALL. be quiet. If you know he doesn't know you know he's the phantom then you're in a lot better spot than if you know he knows you know he's it. When the phantom is exposed he usually gets more aggressive, giving you less time to plan and consolidate forces with your allies. Whisper chat with your allies and create large armies that are ready to move. Plan who will attack the phantoms base and who will attack the phantoms army when he moves out. It might benefit to do a pre-emptive strike.
Fourth:
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-If the phantom has been exposed by any means, and you are now on the offensive to kill the phantom, try to contain him. If you contain the phantom then you know where his army is and more importantly where it isn't. where he isn't is all over the map killing expos. therefore you can grab 20000000 expos during this time and create maximal doom fleets/armies.
-Establish forward attack positions with turrets, cannons, crawlers, nydus worms and pylons for reinforcements, planetary fortresses. use siege tanks and other long range units to whittle away at the phantom's outer buildings, retreating those units back to the defenses when necessary.-Use spells like seeker missile, yamato cannon, psi storm, and nuke to hit outlying units and buildings.
-Establish forward attack positions with turrets, cannons, crawlers, nydus worms and pylons for reinforcements, planetary fortresses. use siege tanks and other long range units to whittle away at the phantom's outer buildings, retreating those units back to the defenses when necessary.-Use spells like seeker missile, yamato cannon, psi storm, and nuke to hit outlying units and buildings.
Fifth:
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Try to prevent anyone from getting tons of unit producing structures.
-This means when someone has an absurd number of warpgates, declare to them "you have an absurd number of warpgates. That much power is too great for you relative to the other's producing capabilities. Please destroy some of those warpgates or we will destroy them for you. That is too much power for one player, we cannot risk you being the phantom."
-This means when someone has an absurd number of warpgates, declare to them "you have an absurd number of warpgates. That much power is too great for you relative to the other's producing capabilities. Please destroy some of those warpgates or we will destroy them for you. That is too much power for one player, we cannot risk you being the phantom."
Sixth:
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-be ready to unally people. during night it might be best if you unally everyone just so that there is no chance an approaching army will catch you off guard. Be ready to forcefield. be ready to launch defensive nukes. be ready to fall back. BE READY.
Seventh:
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-Kill the phantom. If you kill him the game is over and you win, so that might be a good idea 
