Foreseer's Contract Update and Nemesis Assassin Event Thoughts

The Foreseer's Contract has been issued. After a cool digital comic which offered a peak at the newest hero to sign their name in blood for ancient's struggle, the Oracle was made live. I'll highlight some of the additions, positive and negative.

• The new Phantom Assassin arcana looks awesome, but disappointing that it's only a weapon. The model change, alternate animations, and in-game icon are well done. My disappoint with it only being a weapon stems from wanting to use a whole set, not just 4 of the 5 piece or whatever the case may be. Maybe Valve should add an "augment hero" equip slot for occations such as this.
• The Oracle as a hero seems underwhelming in power level, but I don't mind. At least for the moment, the Oracle isn't breaking pubs the way some previous heroes have (Terrorblade I'm looking at you.) I would much rather have the Oracle start a little under-powered and get tuned once it's better understood how he interacts with heroes than the alternative.
• Buying the prediction item every time seems a little greedy for Valve. If it were me, buying the PA arcana would give you one everyday for the duration of the event (as long as you used it up the previous day.)
• Playing with the in game contract idea with reward is super fun. It introduces an objective that doesn't create an advantage for either team. Creation of such an objective with a sought after reward (an awesome set)  adds dimensions of freshness and fun to the game.

Drafting the PA because of the event and Oracle because of new hero infatuation at higher rates is warping the pub metagame. Some pub analysis: Level 1 is the Oracle and PA. They are bad against level 2 heroes and sharing the Razor and Sand King. Level 3 heroes, then, are those good against both the Razor and SK, which are the Bloodseeker and Sniper. However, the Sniper is not a true level 3 hero because of his inherent weakness to PA. This leaves only the Bloodseeker seeing an increase in popularity. It should also be noted that SK is strong against Razor making him the most likely to see more play and an increase in win percentage. It will be interesting to see what tomorrows number from DOTABuff bring.

Level 1	PA:	Oracle
Level 2	Razor	Razor
	Omniknight	Earth Spirit
	Sand King	Phantom Assassin
	Centaur Warrunner	Magnus
	Ogre Magi	Sand King
	Lion	Leshrac
	Axe	Pugna
	Crystal Maiden	Undying
Level 2	Razor:	Sand King:
	Drow Ranger	Zeus
	Sniper	Techies
	Techies	Spectre
	Viper	Bloodseeker
	Meepo	Juggernaut
	Bloodseek	Phoenix
	Sand King	Sniper
	Ember Spirit	Elder Titan