Our family has the Carcassonne Big Box 3 plus the Carcassonne: The River 1 Exp so I was afraid that we were becoming expansion-happy and that yet another expansion would overwhelm us and affect the "play-ability" (as it is, when we try to play with every expansion we have, inevitably someone loses track and it gets messy). However, the Phantom is a really easy addition--now we're so used to it, we can't play without it! The Phantom just gives you one more meeple in addition to your original follower that you can play on the same tile and in the same turn. For $5, it's totally worth it.