ASCERTAIN 知己知彼 (zhī jǐ zhī bǐ)

Description:
"Sun Tzu" would be proud. Straight out of the Art-of War textbook, ASCERTAIN allows you an all-access pass behind enemy lines. Take a leisurely read of all your opponents on-hand cards, or grab a peek at his hidden character card, no amount of mind games can stand up to this cards ability to make your enemy feel more naked than Paris Hilton at a drunken party.

What it does:
The name and the illustration of this card is explicit enough to tell its usage. ASCERTAIN allows you to peek either 1 hidden character card or a whole set of on-hand cards. By doing so, you know the identity and/or the intention of any player.

By choosing to execute RE-DRAW instead of ASCERTAIN, you get a 1-for-1 exchange immediately by drawing a new card from the deck.

How to use it:
During your action phase, you can use ASCERTAIN on another player. You choose 1 of 2 options:
1. View one of his/her hidden character cards.
2. View the whole set of his/her on-hand cards.

Note that if both character cards of the target player are exposed, you can only choose option 2, even if he/she does not have on-hand cards.

Re-draw: Place this card into the discard pile and draw a card. Note that re-draw is not using nor discarding, so abilities activated by using (“Assembling Wisdom” of Huang Yueying) or discarding (“Comity” of Kong Rong) cannot be activated.

Historical basis:
“Know yourself and know your foe, and you can win hundreds of battles without a single defeat. 知己知彼，百战不殆”. A well-known sentence of The Art of War, military intelligence is always recognized as one of the most essential part of ancient Chinese warfare. In the tumultuous Three Kingdom Era, good generals and strategists are able collect information from the slightest evidence. Guo Jia郭嘉, “The Short-lived Oracle”, can foretell the death of Sun Ce 孙策 from his daily behaviour. The omniscient Zhuge Liang诸葛亮 can even predict weather and fate by astrology.

Intelligence plays an important part in battles, too. At the Battle of Guandu 官渡之战, Cao Cao曹操 was initially at a disadvantaged position against Yuan Shao 袁绍. However, Xu You 许攸 defected from Yuan Shao’s forces, and leaked the location of their supply depot, Wuchao乌巢, to Cao Cao. With this information in hand, Cao Cao raided Wuchao and decisively won the battle.