One the beauties of LibreOffice is indeed it's use of LaTex math allowing for rapid and easy work with math. The newline is supported which rocks. But is useless until it also supports the align* feature of the LaTex asmath module. Here's an example: \begin{align*} 2x - 5y &= 8 \\ 3x + 9y &= -12 \end{align*} Which aligns where the & characters are. Aligning a series of equations on an = sign is stock standard need in mathematical expression and work arounds with phantom and/or matrices are wholly inadequate. phantom works well enough if the LHS is unchanging. matrix works well enough if you have time to kill in formatting and finding the right settings to space them right and are happy with ugly back code for your equations anulling one of the beauties of the current LaTex style support.
My apologies to triage, I found this subsequent to filing: https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=44902 a clear duplicate. Though IMHO this one is worded better for what it's worth.
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 44902 ***
LibreOffice's use of LaTeX math is fantastic, especially for aligning equations with align*. It's like having a perfect game plan in Retro Bowl—everything just falls into place seamlessly. Current workarounds like phantom and matrix feel like fumbling the ball compared to the clean alignment align* offers. https://retrobowl-game.io/