Valve details the Nemesis Assassin Dota 2 event

Valve managed to upset a lot of Dota 2 players a few months back when they announced that there won’t be a Diretide event this year. Perhaps in an attempt to make it up to us, Valve created a new and very different event that’s unlike anything they’ve done before. The Nemesis Assassin event was first hinted at in the recently released “Foreseer’s Contract” comic and described a bit shortly after. However, Valve waited until today to give us all the details. What’s interesting about this event is that it revolves around a single hero, although the others can be involved in one way or another as well. Out of the 100+ Dota 2 heroes to choose from, Valve picked Phantom Assassin to be the main protagonist of this event.

Apparently Oracle, the latest hero to join the roster, gave PA a very powerful weapon called the Manifold Paradox and hired her to get rid of all those who will try to assassinate him in the future. Interestingly, this will reflect in-game as during the event Phantom Assassin will receive contracts for certain heroes and she must do her best to kill them before they kill her first. All players can participate in the event but one of them will need to have purchased the Manifold Paradox (aka the latest Dota 2 Arcana item) and play as PA. “Each day during the event, Oracle will tally his killers to compile a list of nemeses,” Valve explains in an update on the Dota 2 website. “If Phantom Assassin faces one or more of these nemeses in a match where any player on either team owns the Manifold Paradox Arcana, Phantom Assassin will automatically receive a contract to kill an opposing nemesis hero.”

In order to fulfill a contract PA must score a kill against her target before the target kills her first. Otherwise, the contract will be denied. If she manages to fulfill a contract, all the players on her team will receive a trophy at the end of the match, provided they also managed to win it. In addition, “each Arcana owner in the match has a chance to trigger a cluster-drop of items for the winning team.” While any Dota 2 player can win items during the event, Phantom Assassin Arcana owners get a little something extra. The Manifold Paradox can be upgraded two times, but the owners will need to win games and gather points for it. Until December 7th Arcana owners will gain three points towards upgrading the item if they win a Dota 2 game with any hero. After December 7th they will only gain one point per match and that match must be won with Phantom Assassin.