As much a near-print as near-prints can be, in this case of Team Sponsorship. It is now neutral and one universal influence so that everyone, including HB, can join in on the asset spam fun, but for a price. It has the same (albeit reworded) text and rez cost but costs 1 fewer credit to trash, which all runners will appreciate. Not much else to say about it. If you have a horizontal deck and you can spare the influence, you will probably want to play this. If you play a different archetype, this likely isn't for you.

I have always said that 4/2 agendas need to be incredibly strong to see play. And I think Kingmaking might just be up there. If you build your deck correctly, this is essentially a 4/3 but without giving the runner a big boost like Improved Protein Source or the downside of being unable to fast advance it with something like Vladisibirsk City Grid as with Vulnerability Audit.

Ofcourse there is a downside to it, which is that you might not have a 1-pointer in hand at the time of scoring. But then again, between your mandatory draw and the 3 cards this draws, your chances of seeing one are pretty high. And worst case scenario, it still draws you 3 cards, which is probably an upside (unless you draw into a ton of non-1-point agendas).

So yeah, great agenda that will probably see play in specific NBN decks.

This is a cool, thematic card. And also not very good.

In theory this is better than Diesel. You get 2 more cards for 2 extra credits and you get an access on R&D to boot, plus any other value you get off your board state. However, the kicker is of course that you need a succesful run on R&D. In the early game, when you need the card draw most for your set-up, R&D is unlikely to be unprotected (you're shaper after all). And playing this against an iced server is very risky. If the run is unsuccessful, you get nothing. In the late game you can probably get into R&D just fine. But then the cost for this event gets increased by what it costs to break the R&D ice.

Perhaps controversially, I think this card might actually be somewhat ok in Ken. He can play this for 1 credits and the corp is more likely to ice HQ against you turn 1. But even then, 3 influence is a lot. I think most runners are better off playing Diesel or [Dr. Nuka(/en/card/33092).

An ice tailor-made for Pravdivost.

In most NBN decks. this card is just kinda ok. Its subs are good, having both a somewhat painful face-check and an ETR. But at 5 cost, it isn't exactly cheap. Sure, Tollbooth is even more expensive, but it has a 'guaranteed' "lose 3 credits on encounter" ability that doesn't require any upkeep on your part. And at 5 strength, it is very annoying to break for Black Orchestra, as a nice bonus. You could advance this ice manually, but spending a click and a credit to make the runner lose 3 during a run on one specific server doesn't seem great. Still, NBN can always use more code gate options. On the cheap you have Authenticator (Pop-up Window doesn't even count imo) and funnily enough you often see Enigma. The aforementioned Tollbooth is the BIG one. At 4 - 5 credits you have Archangel (pretty good), Funhouse (good in tag decks), Peeping Tom (eew) and Sandman (EEEEW). Especially in a glacier deck, Mestnichestvo might see play due to being straightforward.

However, in Pravdivost this card becomes a beast. Because you can keep charging it for free, I think Mestnichestvo goes from ok to great. A 5 cost ice that cost the runner 6 - 7+ credits to get through every time is nice value. My big complaint here is that your ability is only once per turn, and if you are constantly using it on this ice you won't get value elsewhere. Still, on turns where you don't have anything else to advance, you can just keep parking counters on Mestnichestvo. Too bad its ability is only once per encounter. Vasilisa + this also allows you to trade more efficiently with the runner (1 of your credits for 3 credits of theirs), so you can use your ability for other purposes.

So yeah, neat little ice. One of the backbones for 1 ID's ice suite, and might even see play in other NBN decks. Probably not out-of-faction. Except maybe Eternal because of Tennin Institute. Is that a thing? I assume it isn't, but then again I usually stay with Standard and away from the shark-infested waters that is the Eternal pool. Anyway, happy to have Mestnichestvo.

EDIT: Oh god, I just remembered Cayambe Grid is a card in not-Standard...

As the corp, would you rather have 7 credits, or 3 cards? The answer to this is almost always the former, and that's why several weeks after the release of Borealis, I have yet to see this card make an appearance in any HB deck, and I don't expect to see it pop up in (m)any decks going forward.

Is this agenda any good? I think it is right on the edge of "playable". And that's not good enough. Sure, drawing cards is usually nice but as the corp, cards come pretty cheap to us anyway. The skipping of discard is quite sweet, especially since on the turn we score we are most likely to be over our hand limit anyway. If we're Asa and we start next turn with 10 cards (6 + 3 + mandatory), we can empty it out with a bunch of installs. Too bad Lateral Growth just rotated. We could play something like Hansei Review to get more value out of the extra cards. But is that worth a deck slot in a world where shuffling cards back is cheap and easy? Nah.

This card's biggest problem is that even with the recent ban of Cyberdex Sandbox (and SSL a while back), most corps aren't starved for good agendas. And as a 4/2, this just doesn't make the cut. Not in a world where every corp can play Offworld Office. I understand and agree this could never have been printed as a 3/2 (Sports is already looking super strong). But as already established, even with all the support we have gotten, 4/2 is still a bit of an awkward type to score. So the ability has to merrit its inclusion. And with M3, that isn't the case.

HB even has other decent 4/2's you could consider. Hell, I think Architect Deployment Test is a outright good agenda. Even Remote Enforcement is arguably better than M3. When is the last time you've seen either of those? Right. And then there are truly amazing agendas like Vitruvius, Luminal Transubstantiation and now also Élivágar Bifurcation.

So yeah, I think this agenda will probably be binder fodder. Or at least it will be in Standard, until we get a big shake-up of the agenda suites.