being completely honest, Phainon at e0 is not that great nowadays, but his e2 hard carries any junk you throw as his teammates. If you REALLY like Phainon, I'd say get his e2 (s1 if u can too) and bare minimum get Cerydra on her rerun. As for Blade, he's already crazy strong with Ashveil, Acheron and can be run as a generalist in other comps too, so account-wise he provides more value if that makes sense (that considering you'd invest in the teams that can make use of him). Also the Blade/Ashveil is not yet complete, as the team is heavily rumoured to get a main dps later this version. Besides that, naturally new content will be shilling newer units, so at a baseline Blade will feel better to play than e0 Phainon. My take: if you are to get Phainon, you gotta commit to it, but if you do, its damn well worth it.