This is the "NSG nearprint" of Sensie Actors Union, a card notorious for needing to die on sight or you'd lose the game. So how does the Fundraising stack up? Quite well, actually! Beyond the obviously useful effect of helping make sure exactly the card you want ends up in your hand at exactly the time you want it (an ability just about any deck is happy to have), perfect knowledge of - not to mention the power to adjust - the top of R&D can make running there either useless or a very bad time. Much like Mindscaping, you can also use this to bluff that running is a waste of time.

It is, of course, a natural pairing with Balanced Coverage from the same set, allowing you to collect the cash with certainty, as well as an optional extra draw to keep some mystery about what's in HQ. Choosing not to draw even lets you keep a card permanently out of reach in the second slot of R&D until the Runner finds a way to multiaccess, by constantly reordering it to be lower in the deck.

While it's not all rolled into one card any more, the "Game Loss Simulator" combo with Daily Business Show (if you can find the slots) allows you to exert even more control over your deck and exactly which cards end up where - just be wary of shuffle effects or your own Spin Doctor might spell the end of your carefully sculpted plan.

Fundraising has definitely inherited its predecessor's "trash on sight" reputation, so don't expect it to live very long once rezzed...but if you're playing NBN, you likely already have an idea about what that means.

408

I'm going to keep up the noble tradition of reviewing cards that have none! It's perhaps not surprising the card's not been reviewed yet, though; it's easy to see what it's about at first glance. 1 for 7 (8 in BABW or 10 in Outfit) is head and shoulders above the efficiency of just about every other card in the game - even the venerable Hedge Fund only gives you 4. It doesn't even ask for any money up front, so you can play this immediately after a Diversion of Funds to get back in the game even if you're completely broke. In terms of "I need money and I need it now", this card has no equal.

That said, there's some notable drawbacks. It does have a trash cost, unusual for Operations, but at 5 it's rarely going to actually come into play unless the Runner is desperately digging R&D or has so much money they were winning anyway. The rider of a bad publicity means this is more of an advance loan than a pure economy card; every run after this is played is going to come with a built-in 1 discount, and if the Runner runs seven or more times after this you're actually losing the money race. While cards that remove bad publicity do exist, I'd argue they're not really worth the effort to counteract this card. So - you need to leverage the loan before the consequences start to bite.

That means glacier and asset spam are probably out of the question, especially since you can't sit back and pile up money due to the "fewer than 10" condition - you have to actually be spending cash. 4 influence also means you're almost certainly not playing this outside of Weyland, which means the only real home for it is rush decks looking to cash in the loan for an early Bulwark, Trebuchet or Tithonium to slam agendas behind ASAP into an Audacity finish before the Runner is fully set up.

Play smaller ICE and the bad publicity makes breaking it trivial; go any slower and that same bad publicity lets the runner grind value out of it to overtake you. This perfect storm (as well as much of Weyland's appropriate "big ICE" giving even more bad publicity) means it's basically ID-locked to Outfit at time of writing, especially since Argus Security has been and gone. Keep an eye on it if bad publicity becomes easier to remove, though!

For decks that want huge cash swings but don't need to keep their foot on the gas quite so hard, Regolith Mining License goes +13 over a few turns, but costs clicks. Government Subsidy and Hansei Review are similarly big money without needing to worry about giving the Runner drip economy, but Subsidy demands you get up the hill of 10 and Review asks for a card. So, to quote No Free Lunch - consider all your options.

408