Experience-This will be my fifth year as the head coach at Northview High School. Before moving to Georgia, I coached for 7 years at Marquette High in Milwaukee, WI.

Yes, add me to the email chain. My email is mcekanordebate@gmail.com

*As I have gained more coaching and judging experience, I find that I highly value teams who respect their opponents who might not have the same experience as them. This includes watching how you come across in CX, prep time, and your general comportment towards your opponent. In some local circuits, circuit-style policy debate is dwindling and we all have a responsibility to be respectful of the experience of everyone trying to be involved in policy debate.*

I recommend that you go to the bathroom and fill your water bottles before the debate rather than before a speech.

LD Folks please read the addendum at the end of my paradigm.

Meta-Level Strike Sheet Concerns

1. Debates are rarely won or lost on technical concessions or truth claims alone. In other words, I think the “tech vs. truth” distinction is a little silly. Technical concessions make it more complicated to win a debate, but rarely do they make wins impossible. Keeping your arguments closer to “truer” forms of an argument make it easier to overcome technical concessions because your arguments are easier to identify, and they’re more explicitly supported by your evidence (or at least should be). That being said, using truth alone as a metric of which of y’all to pick up incentivizes intervention and is not how I will evaluate the debate.

2. Evidence quality matters a bunch to me- it’s evidence that you have spent time and effort on your positions, it’s a way to determine the relative truth level of your claims, and it helps overcome some of the time constraints of the activity in a way that allows you to raise the level of complexity of your position in a shorter amount of time. I will read your evidence throughout the debate, especially if it is on a position with which I’m less familiar. I won’t vote on evidence comparison claims unless it becomes a question of the debate raised by either team, but I will think about how your evidence could have been used more effectively by the end of the debate. I enjoy rewarding teams for evidence quality.

3. Every debate could benefit from more comparative work particularly in terms of the relative quality of arguments/the interactions between arguments by the end of the round. Teams should ask "Why?", such as "If I win this argument, WHY is this important?", "If I lose this argument WHY does this matter?". Strategically explaining the implications of winning or losing an argument is the difference between being a middle of the road team and a team advancing to elims.

4. Some expectations for what should be present in arguments that seem to have disappeared in the last few years-

-For me to vote on a single argument, it must have a claim, warrant, impact, and impact comparison.

-A DA is not a full DA until a uniqueness, link, internal link and impact argument is presented.Too many teams are getting away with 2 card DA shells in the 1NC and then reading uniqueness walls in the block. I will generally allow for new 1AR answers.

Similarly, CP's should have a solvency advocate read in the 1NC. I'll be flexible on allowing 1AR arguments in a world where the aff makes an argument about the lack of a solvency advocate.

-Yes, terminal defense exists, however, I do not think that teams take enough advantage of this kind of argument in front of me. I will not always evaluate the round through a lens of offense-defense, but you still need to make arguments as to why I shouldn’t by at least explaining why your argument functions as terminal defense. Again this plays into evidence questions and the relative impacts of arguments claims made above.

Specifics

Case-Debates are won or lost in the case debate. By this, I mean that proving whether or not the aff successfully accesses all, some or none of the case advantages has implications on every flow of the debate and should be a fundamental question of most 2NRs and 2ARs. I think that blocks that are heavy in case defense or impact turns are incredibly advantageous for the neg because they enable you to win any CP (by proving the case defense as a response to the solvency deficit), K (see below) or DA (pretty obvious). I'm also more likely than others to write a presumption ballot or vote neg on inherency arguments. If the status quo solves your aff or you're not a big enough divergence, then you probably need to reconsider your approach to the topic.

Most affs can be divided into two categories: affs with a lot of impacts but poor internal links and affs with very solid internal links but questionable impacts. Acknowledging in which of these two categories the aff you are debating falls should shape how you approach the case debate. I find myself growing increasingly disappointed by negative teams that do not test weak affirmatives. Where's your internal link defense?? I also miss judging impact turn debates, but don't think that spark or wipeout are persuasive arguments. A high level de-dev debate or heg debate, on the other hand, love it.

DA-DAs are questions of probability. Your job as the aff team when debating a DA is to use your defensive arguments to question the probability of the internal links to the DA. Affirmative teams should take more advantage of terminal defense against disads. I'll probably also have a lower threshold for your theory arguments on the disad. Likewise, the neg should use turns case arguments as a reason why your DA calls into question the probability of the aff's internal links. Don't usually find "____ controls the direction of the link" arguments very persuasive. You need to warrant out that claim more if you're going to go for it. Make more rollback-style turns case arguments or more creative turns case arguments to lower the threshold for winning the debate on the disad alone.

CP-CP debates are about the relative weight of a solvency deficit versus the relative weight of the net benefit. The team that is more comparative when discussing the solvency level of these debates usually wins the debate. While, when it is a focus of the debate, I tend to err affirmative on questions of counterplan competiton, I have grown to be more persuaded by a well-executed counterplan strategy even if the counterplan is a process counterplan. The best counterplans have a solvency advocate who is, at least, specific to the topic, and, best, specific to the affirmative. I do not default to judge kicking the counterplan and will be easily persuaded by an affirmative argument about why I should not default to that kind of in-round conditionality. Not a huge fan of the NGA CP and I've voted three out of four times on intrinsic permutations against this counterplan so just be warned. Aff teams should take advantage of presumption arguments against the CP.

K-Used to have a bunch of thoughts spammed here that weren't too easy to navigate pre-round. I've left that section at the bottom of the paradigm for the historical record, but here's the cleaned up version:

What does the ballot do? What is the ballot absolutely incapable of doing? What does the ballot justify? No matter if you are on the aff or the neg, defending the topic or not, these are the kinds of questions that you need to answer by the end of the debate. As so much of K debating has become framework debates on the aff and the neg, I often find myself with a lot of floating pieces of offense that are not attached to a clear explanation of what a vote in either direction can/can't do.

T-Sitting through a bunch of framework debates has made me a better judge for topicality than I used to be. Comparative impact calculus alongside the use of strategic defensive arguments will make it easier for me to vote in a particular direction. Certain interps have a stronger internal link to limits claims and certain affs have better arguments for overlimiting. Being specific about what kind of offense you access, how it comes first, and the relative strength of your internal links in these debates will make it more likely that you win my ballot. I’m not a huge fan of tickytacky topicality claims but, if there’s substantial contestation in the literature, these can be good debates.

Theory- I debated on a team that engaged in a lot of theory debates in high school. There were multiple tournaments where most of our debates boiled down to theory questions, so I would like to think that I am a good judge for theory debates. I think that teams forget that theory debates are structured like a disadvantage. Again, comparative impact calculus is important to win my ballots in these debates. I will say that I tend to err aff on most theory questions. For example, I think that it is probably problematic for there to be more than one conditional advocacy in a round (and that it is equally problematic for your counter interpretation to be dispositionality) and I think that counterplans that compete off of certainty are bad for education and unfair to the aff. The biggest killer in a theory debate is when you just read down your blocks and don’t make specific claims. Debate like your

Notes for the Blue Key RR/Other LD Judging Obligations

Biggest shift for me in judging LD debates is the following: No tricks or intuitively false arguments. I'll vote on dropped arguments, but those arguments need a claim, data, warrant and an impact for me to vote on them. If I can't explain the argument back to you and the implications of that argument on the rest of the debate, I'm not voting for you.

I guess this wasn't clear enough the first time around- I don't flow off the document and your walls of framework and theory analytics are really hard to flow when you don't put any breaks in between them.

Similarly, phil debates are always difficult for me to analyze. I tend to think affirmative's should defend implementation particularly when the resolution specifies an actor. Outside of my general desire to see some debates about implementation, I don't have any kind of background in the phil literature bases and so will have a harder time picturing the implications of you winning specific arguments. If you want me to understand how your argumets interact, you will have to do a lot of explanation.

Theory debates- Yes, I said that I enjoy theory debates in my paradigm above and that is largely still true, but CX theory debates are a lot less technical than LD debates. I also think there are a lot of silly theory arguments in LD and I tend to have a higher threshold for those sorts of arguments. I also don't have much of a reference for norm setting in LD or what the norms actually are. Take that into account if you choose to go for theory and probably don't because I won't award you with high enough speaks for your liking.

K debates- Yes, I enjoy K debates but I tend to think that their LD variant is very shallow. You need to do more specific work in linking to the affirmative and developing the implications of your theory of power claims. While I enjoy good LD debates on the K, I always feel like I have to do a lot of work to justify a ballot in either direction. This is magnified by the limited amount of time that you have to develop your positions.

Old K Paradigm (2020-2022)

After y’all saw the school that I coach, I’m sure this is where you scrolled to first which is fair enough given how long it takes to fill out pref sheets. I will say, if you told me 10 years ago when I began coaching that I’d be coaching a team that primarily reads the K on the aff and on the neg, I probably would have found that absurd because that wasn’t my entry point into the activity so keep that in mind as you work with some of the thoughts below. That being said, I’ve now coached the K at a high level for the past two years which means that I have some semblance of a feeling for a good K debate. If the K is not something that you traditionally go for, you’re better off going for what you’re best at.

The best debates on the K are debates over the explanatory power of the negative’s theory of power relative to the affirmative’s specific example of liberalism, realism, etc. Put another way, the best K debaters are familiar enough with their theory of power AND the affirmative’s specific impact scenarios that they use their theory to explain the dangers of the aff. By the end of the 2NR I should have a very clear idea of what the affirmative does and how your theory explains why doing the affirmative won’t resolve the aff’s impacts or results in a bad thing. This does not necessarily mean that you need to have links to the affirmative’s mechanism (that’s probably a bit high of a research burden), but your link explanations need to be specific to the aff and should be bolstered by specific quotes from 1AC evidence or CX. The specificity of your link explanation should be sufficient to overcome questions of link-uniqueness or I’ll be comfortable voting on “your links only link to the status quo.”

On the flipside, aff teams need to explain why their contingency or specific example of policy action cannot be explained by the negative’s theory of power or that, even if some aspects can be, that the specificity of the aff’s claims justifies voting aff anyway because there’s some offense against the alternative or to the FW ballot. Affirmative teams that use the specificity of the affirmative to generate offense or push back against general link claims will win more debates than those that just default to generic “extinction is irreversible” ballots.

Case Page when going for the K- My biggest pet peeve with the current meta on the K is the role of the case page. Neither the affirmative nor the negative take enough advantage of this page to really stretch out their opponents on this question. For the negative, you need to be challenging the affirmative’s internal links with defense that can bolster some of your thesis level claims. Remember, you are trying to DISPROVE the affirmative’s contingent/specific policy which means that the more specificity you have the better off you will be. This means that just throwing your generic K links onto the case page probably isn’t the move. 9/10 the alternative doesn’t resolve them and you don’t have an explanation of how voting neg resolves the offense. K teams so frequently let policy affs get away with some really poor evidence quality and weak internal links. Please help the community and deter policy teams from reading one bad internal link to their heg aff against your [INSERT THEORY HERE] K. On that note, policy teams, why are you removing your best internal links when debating the K? Your generic framework cards are giving the neg more things to impact turn and your explanation of the internal link level of the aff is lowered when you do that. Read your normal aff against the K and just square up.

Framework debates (with the K on the neg) For better or worse, so much of contemporary K debate is resolved in the framework debate. The contemporary dependence on framework ballots means a couple of things:

1.) Both teams need to do more work here- treat this like a DA and a CP. Compare the relative strength of internal link claims and impact out the terminal impacts. Why does procedural fairness matter? What is the terminal impact to clash? How do we access your skills claims? What does/does not the ballot resolve? To what extent does the ballot resolve those things? The team that usually answers more of these questions usually wins these debates. K teams need to do more to push back against “ballot can solve procedural fairness” claims and aff teams need to do more than just “schools, family, culture, etc.” outweigh subject formation. Many of you all spend more time at debate tournaments or doing debate work than you do at school or doing schoolwork.

2.) I do think it’s possible for the aff to win education claims, but you need to do more comparative impact calculus. What does scenario planning do for subject formation that is more ethical than whatever the impact scenario is to the K? If you can’t explain your education claims at that level, just go for fairness and explain why the ballot can resolve it.

3.) Risk of the link- Explain what winning framework does for how much of a risk of a link that I need to justify a ballot either way. Usually, neg teams will want to say that winning framework means they get a very narrow risk of a link to outweigh. I don’t usually like defaulting to this but affirmative teams very rarely push back on this risk calculus in a world where they lose framework. If you don’t win that you can weigh the aff against the K, aff teams need to think about how they can use their scenarios as offense against the educational claims of the K. This can be done as answers to the link arguments as well, though you’ll probably need to win more pieces of defense elsewhere on the flow to make this viable.

Do I go for the alternative?

I don’t think that you need to go for the alternative if you have a solid enough framework push in the 2NR. However, few things to keep in mind here:

1.) I won’t judge kick the alternative for you unless you explicitly tell me to do it and include a theoretical justification for why that’s possible.

2.) The framework debate should include some arguments about how voting negative resolves the links- i.e. what is the kind of ethical subject position endorsed on the framework page that pushes us towards research projects that avoid the links to the critique? How does this position resolve those links?

3.) Depending on the alternative and the framework interpretation, some of your disads to the alternative will still link to the framework ballot. Smart teams will cross apply these arguments and explain why that complicates voting negative.

K affs (Generic)

Yes, I’m comfortable evaluating debates involving the K on the aff and think that I’ve reached a point where I’m pretty good for either side of this debate. Affirmative teams need to justify an affirmative ballot that beats presumption, especially if you’re defending status quo movements as examples of the aff’s method. Both teams benefit from clarifying early in the round whether or not the affirmative team spills up, whether or not in-round performances specific to this debate resolve any of the affirmative offense, and whatever the accumulation of ballots does or does not do for the aff. Affirmative teams that are not the Louisville project often get away with way too much by just reading a DSRB card and claiming their ballots function the same way. Aff teams should differentiate their ballot claims and negatives should make arguments about the aff’s homogenizing ballot claims. All that being said, like I discussed above, these debates are won and lost on the case page like any other debate. As the K becomes more normalized and standardized to a few specific schools of thought, I have a harder and harder time separating the case and framework pages on generic “we couldn’t truth test your arguments” because I think that shifts a bit too strongly to the negative. That said, I can be persuaded to separate the two if there’s decent time spent in the final rebuttals on this question.

Framework vs. the K Aff

Framework debates are best when both teams spend time comparing the realities of debate in the status quo and the idealized form of debate proposed in model v. model rounds. In that light, both teams need to be thinking about what proposing framework in a status quo where the K is probably going to stick around means for those teams that currently read the K and for those teams that prefer to directly engage the resolution. In a world where the affirmative defends the counter interpretation, the affirmative should have an explanation of what happens when team don’t read an affirmative that meets their model. Most of the counter interpretations are arbitrary or equivalent to “no counter interpretation”, but an interp being arbitrary is just defense that you can still outweigh depending on the offense you’re winning.

In impact turn debates, both teams need to be much clearer about the terminal impacts to their offense while providing an explanation as to why voting in either direction resolves them. After sitting in so many of these debates, I tend to think that the ballot doesn’t do much for either team but that means that teams who have a better explanation of what it means to win the ballot will usually pick up my decision. You can’t just assert that voting negative resolves procedural fairness without warranting that out just like you can’t assert that the aff resolves all forms of violence in debate through a single debate. Both teams need to grapple with how the competitive incentives for debate establish offense for either side. The competitive incentive to read the K is strong and might counteract some of the aff’s access to offense, but the competitive incentives towards framework also have their same issues. Neither sides hands are clean on that question and those that are willing to admit it are usually better off. I have a hard time setting aside clash as an external impact due to the fact that I’m just not sure what the terminal impact is. I like teams that go for clash and think that it usually is an important part of negative strategy vs. the K, but I think this strategy is best when the clash warrants are explained as internal link turns to the aff’s education claims. Some of this has to due with the competitive incentives arguments that I’ve explained above. Both teams need to do more work explaining whether or not fairness or education claims come first. It’s introductory-level impact analysis I find lacking in many of these debates.

Other things to think about-

1.) These debates are at their worst when either team is dependent on blocks. Framework teams should be particularly cautious about this because they’ve had less of these debates over the course of the season, however, K teams are just as bad at just reading their blocks through the 1AR. I will try to draw a clean line between the 1AR and the 2AR and will hold a pretty strict one in debates where the 1AR is just screaming through blocks. Live debating contextualized to this round far outweighs robots with pre-written everything.

2.) I have a hard time pulling the trigger on arguments with “quitting the activity” as a terminal impact. Any evidence on either side of this question is usually anecdotal and that’s not enough to justify a ballot in either direction. There are also a bunch of alternative causes to numbers decline like the lack of coaches, the increased technical rigor of high-level policy debate, budgets, the pandemic, etc. that I think thump most of these impacts for either side. More often than not, the people that are going to stick with debate are already here but that doesn’t mean there aren’t consequences to the kinds of harms to the activity/teams as teams on either side of the clash question learn to coexist.

K vs. K Debates (Overview)

I’ll be perfectly honest, unless this is a K vs. Cap debate, these are the debates that I’m least comfortable evaluating because I feel like they end up being some of the messiest and “gooiest” debates possible. That being said, I think that high level K vs. K debates can be some of the most interesting to evaluate if both teams have a clear understanding of the distinctions between their positions, are able to base their theoretical distinctions in specific, grounded examples that demonstrate potential tradeoffs between each position, and can demonstrate mutual exclusivity outside of the artificial boundary of “no permutations in a method debate.” At their best, these debates require teams to meet a high research burden which is something that I like to reward so if your strat is specific or you can explain it in a nuanced way, go for it. That said, I’m not the greatest for teams whose generic position in these debates are to read “post-truth”/pomo arguments against identity positions and I feel uncomfortable resolving competing ontology claims in debates around identity unless they are specific and grounded. I feel like most debates are too time constrained to meaningfully resolve these positions. Similarly, teams that read framework should be cautious about reading conditional critiques with ontology claims- i.e. conditional pessimism with framework. I’m persuaded by theoretical arguments about conditional ontology claims regarding social death and cross apps to framework in these debates.

I won’t default to “no perms in a methods debate”, though I am sympathetic to the theoretical arguments about why affs not grounded in the resolution are too shifty if they are allowed to defend the permutation. What gets me in these debates is that I think that the affirmative will make the “test of competition”-style permutation arguments anyway like “no link” or the aff is a disad/prereq to the alt regardless of whether or not there’s a permutation. I can’t just magically wave a theory wand here and make those kinds of distinctions go away. It lowers the burden way too much for the negative and creates shallow debates. Let’s have a fleshed out theory argument and you can persuade me otherwise. The aff still needs to win access to the permutation, but if you lose the theory argument still make the same kinds of arguments if you had the permutation. Just do the defensive work to thump the links.

Cap vs. K- I get the strategic utility of these debates, but this debate is becoming pretty stale for me. Teams that go for state-good style capitalism arguments need to explain the process of organization, accountability measures, the kind of party leadership, etc. Aff teams should generate offense off of these questions. Teams that defend Dean should have to defend psychoanalysis answers. Teams that defend Escalante should have specific historical examples of dual power working or not in 1917 or in post-Bolshevik organization elsewhere. Aff teams should force Dean teams to defend psycho and force Escalante teams to defend historical examples of dual power. State crackdown arguments should be specific. I fear that state crackdown arguments will apply to both the alternative and the aff and the team that does a better job describing the comparative risk of crackdown ends up winning my argument. Either team should make more of a push about what it means to shift our research practices towards or away from communist organizing. There are so many debates where we have come to the conclusion that the arguments we make in debate don’t spill out or up and, yet, I find debates where we are talking about politically organizing communist parties are still stuck in some universe where we are doing the actual organizing in a debate round. Tell me what a step towards the party means for our research praxis or provide disads to shifting the resource praxis. All the thoughts on the permutation debate are above. I’m less likely to say no permutation in these debates because there is plenty of clash in the literature between, at least, anti-capitalism and postcapitalism that there can be a robust debate even if you don’t have specifics. That being said, the more you can make ground your theory in specific examples the better off you’ll be.

Jerry Chen

Northview '25

debatebtbc@gmail.com

Tech over truth. Take every thought and opinion in this paradigm with a grain of salt because any argument can win given the better debating. That means I will vote on any argument as long as it is on my flow and technically won, including arguments like death good and wipeout. My job as a judge is solely to evaluate the flow objectively and technically, not arbitrarily insert my opinions and let those insertions influence the decision.

Given that, the only things I will refuse to vote on are events that transpired outside of the round. Ad-homs, callouts, and attacks on personal character are not arguments.

Novices

---Less cards; more explanation. Too many novices read files and blocks straight down---I will reward teams that consistently extend previously read evidence before reading new cards and who directly engage in line by line.

---Flow! This is a super important practice and is overlooked in novice debates. Flowing well and using your flow effectively is the biggest difference maker when you're a novice, so take advantage of it.

---Abuse impact calculus. The best novice debates I have judged involved heavy impact weighing from both sides.

---Be efficient. You should know how to send a speech doc, reply all to an email, track prep, and do cross-ex by now.

Overview

---Give judge instruction. The top of your final rebuttals should clearly outline why I should vote for you and what I am voting on.

---"When debating ask the question of Why? Technical debating is not just realizing WHAT was dropped but WHY what was dropped matters and how important it is in the context of the rest of the debate. “If you start thinking in these terms and can explain each level of this analysis to me, then you will get closer to winning the round. In general, the more often this happens and the earlier this happens it will be easier for me to understand where you are going with certain arguments. This type of analysis definitely warrants higher speaker points from me and it helps you as a debater eliminate my predispositions from the debate." - Matt Cekanor.

Topicality

---Teams should clearly go for predictability outweighing debatability or vice versa, not go for a combination of both or a middle ground.

---Plan text in a vacuum is fine.

Counterplans

---Judgekick is good.

---You should read solvency advocates in the 1NC unless you're against a new aff.

---Fine for 2NC counterplanning out of add-ons.

---I'm pretty comfortable and probably err neg in competition debates. 2Ns let 2As get away with murder way too much with abusive perms that are clearly illegitimate---draw a line in the sand.

---Answer the net benefit or lose! You do not want to hand the neg a try or die push, especially because your deficits likely will not outweigh 100% risk of a conceded net benefit.

Disadvantages

---Disads must be coherent in the 1NC with clear uniqueness, link, internal link, and impact.

---Turns case is super important, true, and rarely answered correctly by aff teams---take advantage of it. You should also do in-depth impact calculus, especially if you're going for a linear disad without a counterplan.

Kritiks

---I'm a lot better for race-based critiques than postmodern ones. If you are reading the latter, more explanation and less buzzwords would be greatly appreciated.

---Framework interps should moot the plan. Going for the alternative coupled with links to the plan's material implications means you will lose to the perm double bind. I strongly prefer critiques that center around scholarship and discourse as opposed to materiality.

---Links should be in the context of the aff---no generic or uncontextualized links. PLEASE provide quotes or rehighlightings coupled with coherent extrapolation.

---Love tricks, and will quickly vote on one if dropped. However, the threshold for what constitutes an argument still applies. For example, simply asserting 'fiat isn't real' is not an argument with a warrant, and I will not evaluate 2NR extrapolation about presumption even if the aff team dropped it.

---I will not arbitrarily create a middle-ground interpretation---that is up to the debaters to do, although I do not find it very strategic.

Kritikal Affirmatives

---Your aff should be related to the resolution in some way, shape, or form. What this looks like is up to you, but I'm not down for recycled BS.

---Go for impact turns. Counterinterpretation approaches never made sense to me, because any coherent negative team could easily win DAs to your model.

---Fairness is a better impact than clash.

---Arguments like the Heg DA or Cap Good DA never made sense to me. Unless presented with some framing mechanism, I will heavily err aff on a question of reading an aff in one round not ending all of [insert thing that is good].

---Presumption is an arbitrary double standard---the role of the ballot is to determine whether or not the method of the 1AC is a good idea.

Theory

---Above all, slow down. These debates turn into block-spreading competitions at max speed, making them incredibly hard to adjudicate---do us all a favor and just slow down and do line by line.

---Conditionality is probably good, especially against new affs, and is the only theoretical reason to reject the team. Numerical interpretations are incoherent---it's about the practice, not the number.

Misc.

---Tag team cx is fine, I don't care.

---Inserting evidence is great (with summaries of the rehighlighting, of course). Teams that recognize questionably cut evidence and rehighlight on the fly should be rewarded.

Procedural Stuff

Call me Blake or BD instead of Judge, I don't like feeling old

Email chain: blako925@gmail.com

Please also add: jchsdebatedocs@gmail.com

Add both emails, title the chain Tournament Rd # Your Team vs. Other Team ex) Harvard Round 4 Johns Creek XY vs. Northview AM.

1AC should be sent at round start or if I'm late (sorry in advance), as soon as I walk in the room

If you go to the bathroom or fill your waterbottle before your own speech, I'll dock 1 speaker point

Stealing prep = heavily docked speaks. If you want to engage your partner in small talk, just speak normally so everyone knows you're not stealing prep, don't whisper. Eyes should not be wandering on your laptop and hands should not be typing/writing. You can be on your phone.

Clipping is auto-loss and I assign lowest possible speaks. Ethics violation claims = round stoppage, I will decide round on the spot using provided evidence of said violation

Topic Knowledge

I HAVE ZERO TOPIC KNOWLEDGE.

I HAVE ZERO TOPIC KNOWLEDGE

I HAVE ZERO TOPIC KNOWLEDGE

I HAVE ZERO TOPIC KNOWLEDGE

I HAVE ZERO TOPIC KNOWLEDGE

I debated in high school, didn’t debate in college, have never worked at any camp. I currently work an office job. Any and all acronyms should be explained to me. Specific solvency mechanisms should be explained to me. Tricky process CPs should be explained to me. Many K jargon words that I have heard such as ressentiment, fugitivity, or subjectivity should be explained to me.

Spreading

I WRITE SLOW AND MY HAND CRAMPS EASILY. PLEASE SLOW DOWN DURING REBUTTALS

My ears have become un-attuned to debate spreading. Please go 50% speed at the start of your speech before ramping up. I don’t care how fast or unclear you are on the body of cards b/c it is my belief that you will extend that body text in an intelligent manner later on. However, if you spread tags as if you are spreading the body of a card, I will not flow them. If you read analytics as if you are spreading the body of a card, I will not flow them. If I do not flow an argument, you’re not going to win on it. If you are in novice this probably doesn't apply to you.

While judges must do their best to flow debates and adjudicate in an objective matter that rewards the better debater, there is a certain level of debater responsibility to spread at a reasonable speed and clear manner. Judge adaptation is an inevitable skill debaters must learn.

In front of me, adaption should be spreading speed. If you are saying words faster than how fast I can move my pen, I will say SLOW DOWN. If you do not comply, it is your prerogative, and you can roll the dice on whether or not I will write your argument down. I get that your current speed may be OK with NDT finalists or coaches with 20+ years of experience, but I am not those people. Adapt or lose.

No Plan Text & Framework

I am OK with any affirmative whether it be policy, critical, or performance. The problem is that the 2AC often has huge case overviews that are sped through that do not explain to me very well what the aff harms are and how the advocacy statement (or whatever mechanism) solves them. Furthermore, here are some facts about my experience in framework:

• I was the 1N in high school, so I never had to take framework other than reading the 1NC shell since my partner took in the 2NC and 2NR.
• I can count the number of times I debated plan-less affs on one hand.
• As of me updating this paradigm on 01/28/2023 I have judged roughly 15 framework rounds (maybe less).

All the above make framework functionally a coin toss for either side. My understanding of framework is predicated off of what standards you access and if the terminal impacts to those standards prove if your model of debate is better for the world. If you win impact turns against the neg FW interpretation, then you don't need a C/I, but you have to win that the debate is about potential ballot solvency or some other evaluation method. If the neg wins that the round is about proving a better model of debate, then an inherent lack of a C/I means I vote for the better interp no matter how terrible it is. The comparison in my mind is that a teacher asked to choose the better essay submitted by two students must choose Student A if Student B doesn't turn in anything no matter how terrible or offensive Student A's essay is.

Tech vs. Truth

I used to like arguments such as “F & G in federal government aren't capitalized T” or “Period at the end of the plan text or the sentence keeps going T” b/c I felt like these arguments were objectively true. As I continue to judge I think I have moved into a state where I will allow pretty much any argument no matter how much “truth” there is backing it especially since some truth arguments such as the aforementioned ones are pretty troll themselves. There is still my job to provide a safe space for the activity which means I am obligated to vote down morally offensive arguments such as racism good or sexism good. However, I am now more inclined to vote on things like “Warming isn’t real” or “The Earth is flat” with enough warrants. After all, who am I to say that status quo warming isn’t just attributable to heating and cooling cycles of the Earth, and that all satellite imagery of the Earth is faked and that strong gravitational pulls cause us to be redirected back onto flat Earth when we attempt to circle the “globe”. If these arguments are so terrible and untrue, then it really shouldn’t take much effort to disprove them.

Reading Evidence

I err on the side of intervening as little as possible, so I don’t read usually read evidence. Don't ask me for a doc or send me anything afterwards. The only time I ever look at ev is if I am prompted to do so during speech time.

This will reward teams that do the better technical debating on dropped/poorly answered scenarios even if they are substantiated by terrible evidence. So if you read a poorly written federalism DA that has no real uniqueness or even specific link to the aff, but is dropped and extended competently, yes, I will vote for without even glancing at your ev.

That being said, this will also reward teams that realize your ADV/DA/Whatever ev is terrible and point it out. If your T interp is from No Quals Alex, blog writer for ChristianMingle.com, and the other team points it out, you're probably not winning the bigger internal link to legal precision.

Case

I love case debate. Negatives who actually read all of the aff evidence in order to create a heavy case press with rehighlightings, indicts, CX applications, and well backed UQ/Link/Impact frontlines are always refreshing watch. Do this well in front of me and you will for sure be rewarded.

By the 2AR I should know what exactly the plan does and how it can solve the advantages. This obviously doesn't have to be a major component of the 1AR given time constraint, but I think there should at least some explanation in the 2AR. If I don't have at least some idea of what the plan text does and what it does to access the 1AC impacts, then I honestly have no problem voting on presumption that doing nothing is better than doing the aff.

Disads

Similar to above, I think that DA's have to be fully explained with uniqueness, link, and impact. Absent any of these things I will often have serious doubts regarding the cohesive stance that the DA is taking.

Topicality

Don't make debate meta-arguments like "Peninsula XY read this at Glenbrooks so obviously its core of the topic" or "every camp put out this aff so it's predictable". These types of arguments mean nothing to me since I don't know any teams, any camp activities, any tournaments, any coaches, performance of teams at X tournament, etc.

One small annoyance I have at teams that debate in front of me is that they don't debate T like a DA. You need to win what standards you access, how they link into your terminal impacts like education or fairness, and why your chosen impact outweighs the opposing teams.

Counterplan

I have no inherent bias against any counterplan. If a CP has a mechanism that is potentially abusive (international fiat, 50 state fiat, PICs bad) then I just see this as offense for the aff, not an inherent reason why the team or CP should immediately be voted down.

I heavily detest this new meta of "perm shotgunning" at the top of each CP in the 2AC. It is basically unflowable. See "Spreading" above. Do this and I will unironically give you a 28 maximum. Spread the perms between cards or other longer analytical arguments. That or actually include substance behind the perm such as an explanation of the function of the permutation, how it dodges the net benefit, if it has any additional NB, etc.

I think 2NR explanation of what exactly the CP does is important. A good 2N will explain why their CP accesses the internal links or solvency mechanisms of the 1AC, or if you don't, why the CP is able to access the advantages better than the original 1AC methods. Absent that I am highly skeptical of broad "CP solves 100% of case" claims and the aff should punish with specific solvency deficits.

A problem I have been seeing is that affirmatives will read solvency deficits against CP's but not impacting the solvency deficits vs. the net benefit. If the CP doesn't solve ADV 1 then you need to win that ADV 1 outweighs the net benefit.

Judge kick is not my default mindset, neg has say I have to judge kick and also justify why this is OK.

Kritiks

I don't know any K literature other than maybe some security or capitalism stuff. I feel a lot of K overviews include fancy schmancy words that mean nothing to me. If you're gonna go for a K with some nuance, then you're going to need to spend the effort explaining it to me like I am 10 years old.

Theory

If the neg reads more than 1 CP + 1 K you should consider pulling the trigger on conditionality.

I default to competing interpretations unless otherwise told.

Define dispositionality for me if this is going to be part of the interp.

Extra Points

To promote flowing, you can show me your flows at the end of a round and earn up to 1.0 speaker points if they are good. To discourage everyone bombarding me with flows, you can also lose up to a full speaker point if your flows suck.

email: sevendeng.wa@gmail.com

Hey guys, my name is Seven Deng, a JC varsity debater, 1N/2A in policy.

Some things to know

• tag teaming is okay during cross
• tech>truth
• please track your time.
• clarity>speed
• have fun! Do not be discouraged no matter what the result is.
• be nice to each other
• impact analysis!!!!

Add me to the email chain, ishaan.dhaneshwar@gmail.com (no google docs)

Email title should provide useful information. Ex. Tournament---Round #---AFF Team A v. NEG Team B.

Clarity>Speed

As a general rule, you can speed up on cards but make sure you slow down on tags, author names, and analytics, as well as letting me know when you're changing flows.

Don't do anything rude or disrespectful (pretty self-explanatory).

If a team concedes an argument, explain to me why I should care.

2NR/2AR should have impact calculus (magnitude, risk/probability, timeframe).

Good luck and have fun!

Director of Debate at Alpharetta High School where I also teach AP US Government & Politics (2013- present)

Former grad assistant at Vanderbilt (2012-2013)

Debated (badly) at Emory (2007-2011).

Please add me to the email chain: laurenivey318@gmail.com

Top-level, I really love debate and am honored to be judging your debate. I promise to try my best to judge the round fairly, and I hope the notes below help you. Most of the below notes are just some general predispositions/ thoughts. I firmly believe that debaters should control the debate space and will do my best to evaluate the round in front of me, regardless of if you adapt to these preferences or not.

I flow on paper and definitely need pen time; I've tried to flow on the computer and it just doesn't work for me.

Counterplans- I like a good counterplan debate. I generally think conditionality is good, and is more justified against new affirmatives. PICs, Process CPs, Uniqueness CPs, Multiplank CPs, Advantage CPs etc. are all fine. On consult counterplans, and other counterplans that are not textually and functionally competitive, I tend to lean aff on CP theory. All CPs are better with a solvency advocate. If the negative reads a CP, presumption shifts affirmative, and the negative needs to be winning a decent risk of the net benefit for me to vote negative. I am probably not the greatest person for counterplan competition debates.

Disads- The more specific, the better. Yes, you can read your generic DAs but I love when teams have specific politix scenarios or other specific DAs that show careful research and tournament prep. If there are a lot of links being read on a DA, I tend to default to the team that is controlling uniqueness.

Topicality- I find T debates sometimes difficult to evaluate because they sometimes seem to require a substantial amount of judge intervention. A tool that I think is really under utilized in T debates is the caselist/ discussion of what affs are/ are not allowed under your interpretation. Try hard to close the loop for me at the end of the 2nr/ 2ar about why your vision of the topic is preferable. Be sure to really discuss the impacts of your standards in a T debate.

Framework- Framework is a complicated question for me. On a truth level, I think people should read a plan text, and I exclusively read plan texts when I was a debater. However, I'll vote for whoever wins the debate, whether you read a topical plan text or not, and frequently vote for teams that don't read a plan text; in fact, my voting record is better for teams reading planless affirmatives than it is for teams going for FW. However, I also think this is because teams that don't defend a plan are typically much better at defending their advocacy than neg teams are at going for FW. I tend to think affs should at least be in the direction of the topic; I'm fairly sympathetic to the "you explode limits 2nr" if your aff is about something else. Put another way, if your aff is not at least somewhat related to the topic area it's going to be harder to get my ballot. I do think fairness is a terminal impact because I don't know what an alternative way to evaluate the debate would be but I can be persuaded otherwise.

Kritiks- I am more familiar with more common Ks such as security or cap than I am with high theory arguments like Baudrillard. You can still read less common or high theory Ks in front of me, but you should probably explain them more. I tend to think the alternative is one of the weakest parts of the Kritik and that most negative teams do not do enough work explaining how the Kritik functions.

Misc-If both teams agree that topicality will not be read in the debate, and that is communicated to me prior to the start of the round, any mutually agreed previous year's topic is on the table. I will also bump speaks +0.5 for choosing this option as long as an effort is made by both teams. I am strongly in the camp of tech over truth.

I am unlikely to vote on disclose your prefs, wipeout, spark, or anything else I would consider morally repugnant. I also don't think debate should be a question of who is a good person. While I think you should make good decisions out of round, I am not in the camp of "I will vote against you for bad decisions you made out of round" or allegations made in round about out of round behavior. But, I have voted against teams or substantially lowered speaks for making the round a hostile learning environment and think it is my job as a judge and educator to make the round a safe space.

Good luck! Feel free to email me with any questions.

Add me to the email chain, alex.jesser@outlook.com

Email title should provide useful information. Ex. Tournament---Round #---AFF Team A v. NEG Team B.

Clarity>Speed

As a general rule, you can speed up on cards but make sure you slow down on tags, author names, and analytics, as well as letting me know when you're changing flows.

Don't do anything rude or disrespectful (pretty self-explanatory).

If a team concedes an argument, explain to me why I should care.

If it's a policy round, 2NR/2AR should have impact calculus (magnitude, risk/probability, timeframe).

Good luck and have fun!

Add me to the email chain: theodore.jeemin.kim@gmail.com

Be nice and respectful, it's too early/middle/late in the day to be at each other's throats. I appreciate specificity over generics, but anything goes I guess. I'm more of a realist, so try to interact with the topic/resolution reasonably (especially with impacts, make sure the links make sense and the uniqueness is unique.)

Let's hear all the weird theories and philosophies! I'm very interested in hearing about them and although there's a good chance you're going to lose if it's really weird, I'll give you extra speaker points.

Identity and framework arguments - I probably won't ever get one, but if I do, let's hear it! There's definitely value in these sorts of debates even if they aren't the 'traditional debate' educational value.

K - Love them, please run them, but explain them well and make sure they aren't ____-ist. Realism in a K doesn't make much sense but I prefer alt-Ks to in-round Ks, but anything is good.

T - Go for any T about any word/definition, but make sure it makes at least a little bit of sense.

Everything else also all good.

If there's a particular reason for me to vote for you, I expect you to point it out, explain it, and keep that point going – I'm not going to give myself extra reasons to vote for a specific side by thinking 'too much.'

Alpharetta '25

Email

---rishakohli@gmail.com

---email title should provide useful information. Ex. Tournament---Round #---Team A v. Team B.

TLDR

---adopted from Eshan Momin (and anyone he gives credit to)

---debating and judge instruction matter way more than personal preferences.

---generally good: more cards, predictability, judge kick.

Top Level

---tech > truth

---I will flow and vote on things said in the debate. Ideological considerations are irrelevant and I will value judge instruction more than anything

---stop hiding ASPEC or other dumb stuff. You'll lose speaker points.

---flowing is great---if I can tell you are not at least sufficiently, it will not go so well.

---theory debates are good

K

---don't say buzzwords and I am not as comfortable with these arguments---does not mean I will not hear these arguments but will need more explanation

---specific > backfile.

---have links to the plan > links about reps

---do case debating

---good framework debating and links don't usually need an alternative

T

---competing interpretations > reasonability.

vagueness in any form is almost always not a voting issue but can implicate AFF solvency.

---better interpretations and more cards are always good

---impact comparison will heavily shape my decision

CP

---DA/CP---love them, most comfortable with these debates (pls have a NB)

---default is judge kick.

---solvency deficits need impacts tied to the ADVs

---intrinsic perms are fine, but they need a justification like textual legitimacy

DA

---framing pages are mostly silly. Ks of things the NEG has said > “but the DA has internal links.”

---im down for politics DAs in most variations---please explain what is going on for UQ

---yay impact turns

---good impact calc (and turns case) will be rewarded and is always good

Others

---clash is good + have fun!

---not voting for death good

---stealing prep, clipping cards = auto L

---"Being racist, sexist, violent, etc. in a way that is immediately and obviously hazardous to someone in the debate = L and 0. My role as educator > my role as any form of disciplinarian, so I will err on the side of letting stuff play out - i.e. if someone used gendered language and that gets brought up I will probably let the round happen and correct any ignorance after the fact. This ends when it begins to threaten the safety of round participants. Where that line is entirely up to me." – Truf.

I'll pretty much vote on anything just try your best, and you're always welcome to ask any questions or "post-round" bc ik debaters work hard :)

AND please add a pun related to this topic somewhere in your speech for +0.1 speaks!

her/shey

ahs 25'

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Short:

neha not judge please i sweari also would not like to be a judge so

Judging you: tech>>>>>>truth
Prefs: I don't like cross examination at all and I think resolutional debating is better as a PF judge I think sticky defense applies and I don't award points over 26 because its 0-30 so no one is worthy of anything higher in any instance and I will vote on who spoke better. you can still pref me i guess...

rookie/novice: if you're flowing and your flows are good, +.1 speaks. time your speeches.

yes i want to be on the chain: nehamahesh.2007@gmail.com

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Long:

Dropped arguments are 100% true. Anything that follows are my opinions which are ripoffs of other opinions of more qualified people and have no bearing on my decision unless these things are said in the round:

DA--- My TLDR for this comes from an old nerdy debate scenario. If the negative reads a nonunique politics disad from 10 years ago, and the affirmative says nothing on the uniqueness level and drops it, I'm voting on the 10-year-old DA. Therefore, making smart analytics can easily reverse that. If debaters make smart uniqueness controls the link or vice versa, they will be rewarded for it. The 2AR should be impact calc heavy even if they have answered the DA, and the negative should make arguments that a 1% risk means I should prefer the disad. Overivews and judge instruction are king.

CP--- Can be convinced that process CPs or agent CPs might be bad, but I would encourage teams to read them along with 1000 plank advantage counterplans because they are fun. Smart advantage counterplans combined with aff-specific strategies should be rewarded because they are hard to make but very impressive. I lean neg on theory in opinion because 2A's should just answer arguments but I'm not opposed or going to punish the affirmative for making them and going for them in the 2AR. See thoughts on condo.

K--- If you're reading Baudrillard and I hear welcome to the carnival I will become very happy. I will also not understand anything you're saying in your long overviews. High theory K's are not for me, but if you explain them well enough I will try to evaluate them in the same way that I would evaluate any argument made. Also, yes links should at least be specific to the aff. I think the more specific the better. If the link is to fiscal redistribution, I think that makes for a weaker K.

T--- I really like T. It makes me very happy when the affirmative is clearly untopical and they lose on T. Please put a violation in the 1NC.

K Affs---On this year's topic I think that K Affs are not as strong as in years past but that's just me. If equally debated I could see myself voting either way. The trajectory of affirmative teams reading K affs with impact turns in their framework is good and smart and I will vote on them if done well. I'm a topicality enjoyer, and I only go for T versus K affs so keep that in mind. If you are reading a performance aff about sensitive topics that could be triggering to people in rounds and you refuse to accommodate them or alter some parts of your performance, please strike me because you will lose.

Condo--- I think the negative should get unlimited condo because I like abusive 1NCs. If the neg drops condo that's their fault and I will vote aff on condo. That being said, if 10 condo happens and you contradict yourself 20 times you should get punished for it.

In Round--- Won't vote on serious accusations that happened outside of the debate, I will stop the round. If you bring up an ethics challenge and say new sheet, I won't continue the debate because I don't want to adjudicate those debates and will involve an adult who can resolve the conflict. After consulting my coaches or any equivalent adult, I'll decide whether or not the round continues. Will also not vote for you if you're a meanie so don't be a horrible person.

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Even Longer:

read any one of the following people's paradigms because I will TRY to be as similar as possible no guarantees

tim ellis

rafael pierry

eshan momin

anish t

anish nayak

sameer j

gabe jankovsky

forslund

Ayush Potdar

Northview PC
ayush.potdar@gmail.com

General

Tech always precedes "truth." The one thing I can promise as a judge is that I will refuse to participate in the inexcusable practice of inserting my own beliefs about the arguments made and use those to evaluate a debate. The implication of that is that you as a debater should feel comfortable presenting any style or type of argument with me in the back if you are confident you can out-maneuver your opponents on the flow with it.

Feel free to post round me in any manner you see fit. Too many judges either refuse to or begrudgingly answer questions after the round that question the merit of their decision. This practice denies the most valuable part of a debate from occurring, one where both the debaters and judges in the room can improve their respective skills. I refuse to take away this opportunity, however, I won't hesitate to put a stop to the post-round if asked to by tab or if it escalates beyond an educational threshold.

I won't automatically discard arguments made about an opponent's personal character or behaviors outside the round, however, I will maintain a significantly low threshold for answering and defeating these styles of arguments.

I will never interject with my opinions during a cross examination, aggressively clear a debater, or make emotionally charged facial expressions. These are practices from judges that I have either directly encountered or have heard about from others and I refuse to participate in it. It is obnoxious, childish and never fails to make everyone in the room uncomfortable.

Planless Affirmatives

I read a planless affirmative for the majority of my high school career, however, the majority of my 2NRs versus these affirmatives were Topicality. That being said, critical teams who prioritize the flow when executing their final rebuttals versus Topicality should pref me.

I have no preference between an affirmative strategy that narrows the scope of the debate to a singular round or one that offers a counter-model of debate. If your strategy centers the former, your final rebuttals should directly indict the negative's presentation of topicality when establishing a link, thoroughly explain how the ballot solves, and defend why a decision rendered by a judge in a competitive forum is valuable. If your strategy centers the latter, you'd best be served with a carded definition of the words in the resolution to mitigate negative offense and/or solve for impacts turns that significantly outweigh negative offense.

For the negative, I have no preference between fairness and clash and you should go for what you are most confident with, however, my 2NRs were almost always fairness and I believe it's the more strategic of the two.

1NCs shouldn't be just Topicality, the Cap K, and the Ballot PIC. Spice it up a little bit even if if everyone in the room knows the 2NR will most likely be T. It stops the 2AC from dumping args on T and if extended in the block, they can easily be a round winner given a 1AR that blows by non-T positions to over-cover T. I could care less if these other 1NC positions are a case-specific K coupled with strong case indicts or if the 1NC is a culmination of terrible word PICs, a frame subtract shell with several frames, numerous impact turns, a topic CP that denies them a permutation, and 3 random Ks. If you're right that they made rejoinder incredibly difficult, then exploit it and make their lives even harder.

Presumption is underutilized. They gave up fiat but still have the burden of doing something. They don't do anything.

If your strategy is an impact turn to their method then 1NC cx is overwhelmingly important. To garner a link you must get them to defend the material implication of their method beyond the debate space, unless of course your impact turn is centered around impact turning the presentation of their advocacy in the debate space.

K v K

In an equally debated K v K debate the aff will almost always win on the permutation, and if you have me in the back of this debate that should be your main focus. The affirmative should invest a large portion of their time explaining the perm with examples, answering every piece of offense and defense to the perm, and establishing a net benefit that outweighs any of their links. For the negative you should spend most of your time answering the permutation. This can be done in multiple ways. You can go the route of theoretically excluding the permutation which can be effective if under-covered but most competent affirmative teams can beat this. The second option is extensive link development or a specific DA to the perm which is much more difficult for aff teams to beat back.

Line by line should be your main priority in these debates. Quite frankly, I couldn't care less for a 2 minute explanation of your theory of power or for a link wall lacking diversification and could've been concisely said in half the words. Put simply, use offense/defense, exploit try or die when you control it, and try to anticipate what your opponent's final rebuttals will look like and beat back on those arguments.

Kritiks

The Kriitk is at its strongest when it centers a framework for adjudication that moots the affirmative. They are not DAs, CPs, or an innovative combination of the two and if they are treated as such they will likely lose to any competent 2A on 'the link doesn't meet our framework interpretation,' 'perm double-bind,' 'link is non-unique,' and/or 'the aff outweighs.' However, if you believe this version of the K is strategic coming out of the 1AR, don't hesitate to go for it.

I have no preference between a contextualized link with numerous quotes pulled from aff evidence in support of it, a dropped "trick," or a "generic" link to fiat. Each have their own strategic utility and their winning potential comes down to execution.

For the affirmative, I find it more strategic to argue for a framework that prioritizes links being unique and to the consequences of the plan coupled with a competitive alternative. I will never arbitrarily use a "middle-ground framework" between the ones presented by the two teams to decide these debates. The affirmative can feel free to argue for one, however, I don't find it to be very strategic.

Impact turn their links. A large portion of negative teams won't be prepared to beat impact turns such as "heg good," "interventions good," "climate tech good," "cap good," etc because they're used to affirmative teams defaulting to framework. Exploit this.

Topicality

When answering or going for topicality, teams should center their strategy around either predictability or debateability not both or a weird combination of the two to maximize their chances of winning.

The most valuable asset to either team in these debates is impact calculus. Approaching your final rebuttals with an offense/defense paradigm in mind will serve you best when trying to win my ballot.

Plan text in a vacuum is fine with me.

Theory

My default regarding most theoretical objections to various positions, aff or neg, are that they are arbitrary. Clever interpretations with strict brightlines can overcome this but a strong push concerning the self-serving and ad-hoc nature of a theory argument is usually difficult to beat.

Conditionality is good, however, a smart 1AR with precise time distribution can set up a winning 2AR on conditionality. The best negative impact is probably neg flex. Affirmative interpretations about the number of condo usually aren't strategic given that the debate is about the practice of conditionality not the specific number of condo read.

Conditionality versus new affirmatives is even better, and much harder to object to.

I won't hesitate to pull the trigger on a disguised theory argument that is dropped as long as I have a clear claim, warrant, and demand to reject the team on my flow.

Counterplans

Fine for any type and have no problem with a "process," "non-germane," or "competition-based" strategy.

In an equally debated context I lean negative on counterplan competition with the exception of a "textual competition only" interpretation. That being said I'm equally fine for affirmative teams on "counterplans must compete functionally and textually" and if the affirmative wins this as a preferable interpretation, they access a partially legitimate permutation.

Unless objected to, I will judge-kick the counterplan.

Fine for 2NC counter planning out of add-ons.

Affirmatives should always answer the net benefit to avoid granting the negative an easy try or die ballot because a 100% risk of a net benefit will likely always outweigh the risk of a solvency deficit.

Disadvantages

Disadvantages can take up any form in the 1NC. I have no distaste for politics DAs, rider DAs, links to fiat, or short DA shells. However if it’s the latter, I'm sympathetic to new 1AR responses in the face of a DA missing structural pieces in the 1NC as long as the 2AC mentions it.

Turns case is important but not a killer. 2Ns should consider the uniqueness and link debate when extending turns case in the 2NR as the two usually prefigure turns case.

Recognizing if you access try or die in these debates and implicating it will go a long way in winning my ballot.

Thumpers are strong pieces of defense for affirmatives; use them if applicable. Although, I'm not against the negative counter planning out of thumpers or uniqueness CPs; the legitimacy of these is of course up for debate.

Case

2As should be held to a higher standard when answering 1NC case arguments, although it's the burden of the negative to do this. Reading generic case overviews and blowing past specific 1NC defense almost never answers any of the warrants and examples in negative evidence. Pointing this out and capitalizing on it will be rewarded.

Zero risk is rare but possible when an argument is dropped with no sign of contestation across the flow.

Soft left affirmatives are good and should be utilized more. Most teams, however, don't approach defeating util properly. Arguments such as "probability first," "conjunctive fallacy," "cognitive bias," and "util is morally abhorrent" should be replaced by an alternative ethical standard. Affirmatives that utilize ethical standards such as Kant, Levinas, etc are some of my favorites and are an excellent tool to exploit a team's inability to defend utilitarianism.

Impact Turns

Impact turn debates are fun and ultimately come down to offense/defense.

Equally good for traditional turns centered on hegemony, capitalism and growth as I am for arguments like wipeout and spark.

Negative util is not any more morally abhorrent than positive util, however as with everything, I can be convinced otherwise via technical debating.

Misc.

I default to inserting rehighlights being fine as long as they're coupled with an analytical argument in the context of the rehighlighting. However, this issue can be debated out.

Prep time finishes when you're done preparing for your speech. Tech time, getting water, using the bathroom, and emailing your speech will not be deducted from your prep time.

The only part of a card that will affect my decision is the highlighted part, unless I'm asked to refer to otherwise.

Presumption flips neg absent framework arguments disputing it.