New years gift best ship ?

[Remove skull merchant]

What is the best tier X choice ?

[Virtual Ocean Horizon]

Real answer: personal preference and skill level.
Other real answer: depends on gamemode.

tl;dr: Schlieffen, shimakaze / gouden, audacious, balao. In that order.

Okay here's some brief info on the ships:

Balao: Subs are boring and ineffective. In any case, this is solid ship of its type. Pick this if you want to focus sub missions for dockyard in Randoms, if you love submarines / stealthy torp DD, or you want to try out a functional sub without grinding a million years in the misery that is t6 / t8. You won't get anything out of this in competitive gamemodes or brawls since you can't bring subs to those and they're a poor pick anyway.

Audacious: One of the weaker T10 CV imo, difficult to play. I just don't find it as effective for its tier as much as Implacable is. I actually do NOT recommend picking this if you've never played high tier CV either, as she doesn't have the alpha to make her feel rewarding and most of her tricks rely on having game knowledge and knowing how to abuse damcon. The legmod makes the hull more like a CVL which is interesting, if weird. I would only pick Audacious if you already are familiar with high tier CV gameplay or you just want to sell the t10 for credits. Can't bring to clan battle but can to ranked.

Gouden Leeuw: A solid pick. A twist on the usual gameplay for a cruiser since it relies on hiding behind islands near caps while spamming airstrike, occasionally popping out to fire some shots. Very good at area denial. If you want to experience the pinnacle of airstrike gameplay without the grind, here you go. The legmod turns the airstrike gameplay up to 11 and is a better cv than audacious. You're welcome to bring this to all competitive gamemodes, although I'm not sure if this is good in brawls. The only downside to this pick is if you don't already have a 10+ point netherlands commander this ship will be nonfunctional. And I'm guessing you don't have one of those unless you already play Netherlands, since its a nation with very few ships and only a single tech tree line.

Schlieffen: Probably the best pick, and the most newbie friendly. If you like battleships this is a no-brainer. Its literally just the better german tech tree BB line and one of the best brawling ships in the game. Even if you suck at the game you'll find this ship relatively easy or at least fun to play. I'm not sure how competitive this ship is in ranked or clan battles, but usually brawlers don't work very well. However, this is one of the best ships for t10 brawls. Biggest downside is that schlieffen does require a commander with like 16+ skill points to be truly effective.

Shimakaze: A solid pick. The ultimate torp DD. Kill things with WALL OF SKILL, be a huge f***-off area denial. If you like torpedoes, pick this. Similarly newbie friendly, although has a very high skill ceiling. Unlike schlieffen is very easy to set up a captain for, only 10 points are required. Not seen as a good pick in competitive gamemodes or brawls unless you're like unicum skill level.

[Virtual Ocean Horizon]

Also I wouldn't write off the t8 picks because every one of those is a great ship to play.

[Nepgear]

Audacious/Balao give the most FXP if you already have the ships.

[Elesh Norn]

Well I am going to take either a sub or cv, as those are ships I usually don´t play and now don´t need to grind to T10.