Assess the Situation

What's not immediately obvious is that this card doesn't give you an "extra" card. You had to draw it and play it to get that card, so it only pays for itself. For that reason, it's not good for characters with a small hand size, because on the turn you draw it your hand has even fewer options. If your normal hand size is 4, you're essentially getting a 3-card hand followed by a 5-card hand.

Characters benefit from this card if they want a big turn to "go nova." Characters that can pump themselves up and untap, like Quicksilver and Spider-Woman can use the bigger hand size to pump themselves up and untap in the same turn, multiplying the advantage of the cards in their hand. During the turn after playing Assess the Situation the advantage needs to be greater than what is lost by playing the card in the first place.

nerman8r · 5
Not sure I completely agree @nerman8r. A small hand-size hero will often have trouble spending their whole hand cleanly, and Assess really helps in those kinds of situations. — adsarf · 421
I do agree about Spider-Woman though. Usually give her Assess in preference to the double resource cards because the double resources can be difficult for her to use once her resource generators are in play. — adsarf · 421
Mirage

I'd only used Mirage as tech against 1-SCH villains in the past, but Iceman's Frostbite Upgrades make her very reliable against any villain, and her Psionic trait synergizes with Cerebro to help dig out his Snow Clones. She's gone way up in value for me with the release of Iceman!

Magic Blast

I attacked an enemy with a tough status with this card, and discarded an energy resource to deal 2 damage to it. Can I choose to deal the 2 damage to get rid of the tough first, before dealing 5 damage to the enemy?

I think you resolve each sentence on the card one after the other — adsarf · 421
As i understand it, unless it's very obvious that there is an order in which you resolve different effects, you can shuffle them around. In this specific case, it says 'all of the above', so they must happen at the same time (during the same window for action), so yeah, I'd say you can do that. Other cards have arrows to represent consecutive elements, and I'm sure there's a card out there that says something along the lines of 'resolve in the following order', so the absence of those signifiers could be understood as the contrary. — TraitorMAIKI · 7
TraitorMAIKI - in this case there is an obvious order. You resolve cards sentence by sentence. The 5 damage happens first and you discard your top card. Then the ability associated with the discarded card happens. So the answer to OP's question is no, it must be 5 then 2. Notably, if you discarded a Wild resource, you can do the "all of the above" options in any order, but that 5 damage always comes first (RR1.5 entry under FAQ for the Hulk ally card, which works similarly) — Stretch22 · 559
Basic Spell

This is a great card designed to cover up for your aspect's weakness. It is not meant to make you "win more", but to spackle over the thing you are lacking in at the moment. This lets an Aggression deck heal itself to buy more time, or let a Justice deck get an annoying minion out of its face, or have a Protection deck smack away a side scheme on a turn where it exhausted during the villain phase and can't use its native thwart.

This card is extra good for Mystics with economy boosters, such as Magik playing it off the top of her deck or Stephen assisting in paying for it with his artifact.

Soulfire · 33
Ice Wall

There was a discussion on BGG forum: boardgamegeek.com With the current RAW, the Frostbite card attached due to 8 or more damage being placed on this card seems to be removed without any effect.

angus · 2
Hmm. That's how I would read it too. I will almost certainly not play it that way though since the intent is clear — Stretch22 · 559
I reached out to the FFG rules team about the inconsequential Frostbite, and got this response from FFG's Rules Specialist Alex: — amavric · 1
"As for Ice Wall, the way it’s meant to be played is that the attacking enemy deals its damage, that attack finishes, and then if Ice Wall is discarded, that enemy receives a copy of Frostbite that remains until its next activation. We are looking into a small update for Ice Wall that better matches its intent, but please play it with its intent in mind going forward." — amavric · 1