The forever ongoing debate of "Phantom or Vandal?". I made a list of all the reasons as to why (in my opinion) the phantom is the superior gun

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1. The fire rate. 11/s vs 9.75/s. This is one of the most obvious and the first thing you notice about the Phantom. The 12.8% increase in fire rate makes it easier to spray and helps in those awkward very close encounters. With the increased fire rate, also comes the larger magazine size to compensate. The 5 extra bullets that the Phantom comes with can mean the difference in a round as you only need 1-2 bullets to kill someone with headshots, or 4-5 (at longer range) body shots.
2. First shot accuracy is better on the Phantom. The 1st shot spread on the Phantom and Vandal is 0.2 and 0.25 respectively. What these numbers really mean is simply how far the fired bullet can deviate from the targeted position of your crosshair. This is more noticeable and emphasised at the longer ranges (~50m). When aiming at the head of an enemy you are more likely to miss the shot from bullet inaccuracy and rng by using the Vandal. At 50m range, if you line up a perfect headshot and tap fire, the Phantom is around ~12% more accurate. On average out of 100 shots, you would miss 30 of them due to first bullet inaccuracies compared to 21 on the Phantom (from my own testing and taking an average of multiple tries). In a game where everyone is looking for a small advantage against their enemies, a 12% difference in bullet accuracy is huge in a competitive game. The Phantom having a significantly better first bullet accuracy at longer ranges compensates for the bullet damage drop off which the Vandal does not have. This brings me to my next point.
3. Valorant maps and gameplay. Valorant's bombsites on most maps are specifically designed to favour Phantom-ranged fights. Valorant also has so much utility, with its main purpose is to cut space between you and your enemies with smokes, molly’s, flashes, and other abilities. All the utility, if used correctly, decreases the distance between you and the enemies, again favouring the Phantom and ignoring the damage drop-off with the closer gun fights.
4. Suppressor. The Phantom's suppressor is not a huge deal, but it allows you to easily spray through smokes without the fear of being shot back because of your visible bullet tracers like from a Vandal. So if you play a controller with smokes, the Phantom is a no-brainer as you cut space and spray through your own smokes.
5. The spray and recoil. The Phantom's recoil is ~10% less in the x and y axis than the Vandal. In other words, the Phantom's recoil travels up and left/right ~10% less than the Vandal, making it easier to control its spray and transfer the spray from one enemy to the other.
6. Clearly the gun you use it situational. It all depends on the agent you play, the map you're on, the smoke meta (viper/astra are not picked as often anymore so the vandal is seeing more play), your playstyle, and what specific play you are thinking of executing in a specific round.
7. Dont sleep on the guardian

COUNTER-ARGUMENT: The Phantom does not have a netpune skin; clear winner = Vandal

Edit: I myself still use the Vandal most of the time because I (and most others) just like the feel of it despite the phantom being statistically better

Let me know if I have missed anything and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong anywhere.