2/28-3/6: PF Tournament Results and the Tricks Tier List
Public Forum Debate
Tournament Results
This weekend, PF debaters competed at the Lakeland tournament.
Congratulations to Samuel Weisz & Owen Erdman from JR Masterman for championing the 2024 Lakeland tournament. In finals, they defeated Ksenia Baatz & Isabelle Chiang from Trinity on a 2-1 decision (Bauschard*, Ismail, Petty). Additional congratulations to Mira Loma’s Joseph Nahas for being the top speaker.
Full pairings and results can be found here.
Best of luck to everyone competing next weekend! Stay tuned for future tournament results.
VBI 2024 Staff Announcement
We are so excited to start announcing our instructors for VBI 2024! Every week, you’ll get a chance to learn more about the talented staff working at VBI this summer. This week’s staff feature is World Schools instructor Nicholas Aranda.
Nicholas Aranda is currently an instructor and debate coach at Colorado Academy in Denver, where he teaches Honors courses on US history, military history, security studies, and foreign policy. He has extensive experience as a debate coach, including his role as a member of the Greenhill coaching staff, coaching the 2022 Texas State Champions in World Schools Debate, 2022 NDCA WSD National Champions, and the 2023 NSDA national semi-finalists. In 2021, Aranda was recognized with the Volunteer of the Year award by the Denver Urban Debate League. Similarly, Aranda has been a presenter and official at numerous debate conferences and has also taught at debate initiatives around the world, including workshops and seminars at An-Najah National Palestinian University, the Stanford National Forensics Institute, Baylor University, Harvard University, & the Global Debate Symposium. Aranda holds dual undergraduate degrees in Philosophy and Peace Studies from Regis University and an MA from the A.Q. Miller School of Media, Communication, & Journalism at Kansas State University. Aranda has written works and presented at National and International academic conferences on topics related to Argumentation and Debate, Race, Gender, Conflict, Political Philosophy, & Affect Theory.
Trilemmas, Furries, and Moral Fiascos: The Tricks Tier List
by Eva Lamberson
Introduction
Let’s get what we’re all thinking out of the way: almost no one likes tricks. At least, not anyone who doesn’t read them. They’re often criticized for being unwarranted, obnoxious cheap shots that prevent substantive debate. And don’t get me wrong – this definitely applies to some, if not a lot, of tricky strategies!
But not all tricks are created equal – some may fall apart entirely if they’re caught and responded to, but others can withstand rigorous debate and still win rounds. And, like it or not, tricks aren’t going anywhere. Tricks debaters seem to have the fortitude to endure anything: losing rounds, community disdain, the apocalypse (that’s why they’re always reading spark)!
So, I’ve decided that if tricks must exist, and if I’m going to be called a tricks hack no matter what I do, that I should be a handy tricks tier list. I’m hoping that this will spur more nuanced discussions about tricks debate that recognizes the vast diversity in what this style is and can be.
The Tier List
Methodology Note #1: The ranks are based on a combination of factors: strategic value, educational value, how easily digestible these arguments are in round and, honestly, my personal opinion on how fun they are.
Methodology Note #2: Obviously tricks are a vast and nebulous set of strategies/arguments, and I couldn’t possibly hope to include them all in a single tier list or article. The ‘tricks’ I have chosen to include in this tier list have been selected through a combination of factors, mainly: the ones I most often judge, the ones that seem to be most popular this season, and community request. It’s also worth noting that I’ve kept some tricks in groups and split some into individual arguments (i.e., “paradoxes” stay together, but “condo logic” is on its own). For the most part, because this is meant to be a general list, not an exhaustive one, I’ve listed tricks in groups when possible. However, if you make your own list (which I hope you do), feel free to get more specific!
Methodology Note #3: Although they have gained increasing popularity over the years, I’m largely not including anything that would be classified as a “K trick” – these seem to be deserving of their own article that can properly delve into the value and specifics of using tricky strategies in tandem with the kritik. But, if you ask me, K tricks probably overall average A or B tier.
However, all this being said: I recognize that all these categories are largely subjective and that I’m just one person. I’m aiming to create a rigorous piece of research here. Because rigorous research requires a large sample set (or, so I’m told... I haven’t taken a science class in a decade), I would encourage community members to fill out their own tricks tier list: https://tiermaker.com/create/debate-tricks-tier-list-16886261.
Discussion
S tier
I’m sure my placement here will be controversial (I know many people who wanted to see other tricks in S tier – sorry skep lovers – and I’m sure there are many who would like to see absolutely none of these arguments in S tier). I think the margin between S and A tier basically came down to personal preference, so I went with my gut.
Phil takes out/justifies theoretical arguments: This is a long-winded way of creating the broader group for ‘truth testing takes out theory’. I think this form of argument to be extremely strategic and I’ve seen some fun and inventive uses of it this season (shoutout to Hegelian dialectics justifying severance perms). I think this is the perfect meld of substantive philosophical justifications and barely-there implications that make an S tier trick.
A tier
I relegated tricks to A tier that I believe are generally strategic, well-explained, and fun, but are missing that special something to push them into my S tier (or were bumped up from B due to my personal bias).
Presumption: Relevant in a LOT of rounds and has a diverse set of triggers – something that all debaters, not just the tricky ones, should be familiar with and comfortable going for.
Frivolous theory (good): This placement may garner me some criticism, but I think friv is a great way to inject something fun and new into rounds. How else could we have arguments ranging from ‘must spec support for furries’ to ‘must wear Santa hats’ and everything in between? Debate is a game, and some people play for fun. Plus, it’s strategic because you can spam a LOT of friv shells in one speech.
Skepticism: Many of my friends were upset that I didn’t put skep in S tier. While I do think skep is generally easy to explain and is relatively strategic, I also think it tends to produce messy and repetitive debates and is quite susceptible to the ivi.
Trivialism: A lot of my placement of logic tricks comes down to how well debaters explain them in round. Trivialism is very strategic, but it’s also often exceptionally underexplained. Tricks debaters often rely on judges already understanding their arguments to get away with being blippy. You totally can win rounds if you explain trivialism thoroughly – it’s not like ice spikes.
B tier
B tier is for tricks that I believe to be theoretically strategic but largely less compelling than A tier tricks due to poor execution or not being widely applicable; many of these arguments have comparable peers in A list that one would be better off reading instead.
Indexicals: I’ve voted off indexicals many times, but it seems like debaters who go for them take the phrase “hidden triggers” to a whole new level. These justifications are often barely there, and the explanations are pretty incoherent – if we didn’t all know the cards were going to be used that way, I don’t think anyone could be reasonably expected to guess that they justify indexicals (and, after reading the papers indexicals cards are cut from, I really don’t think their authors would guess so either...).
Determinism: I feel the same about determinism as skep but find it to be a bit more of an uphill battle to justify and win, at least from my observations.
Permissibility: Strategic but, it seems, less widely useful than presumption triggers. Also, the warrants are often quite underexplained.
Paradoxes: I’m sorry for grouping them all together and not ranking them particularly high, but in fairness, they’re usually all an equal level of explained confusingly and barely implicated. However, every time I judge a well-used paradox, I shout ‘hooray!’ So, I gave them a solid, mid B tier.
C tier
C tier is for arguments that I believe may have a possibility of a warrant and can be strategic, but often lack both of these qualities in rounds.
Eval [specific layer of the debate] after X speech: The slightly more legitimate cousin of ‘eval after the 1AC’; I put it in C instead of F tier because there are (perhaps) reasons we should, for instance, evaluate the theory debate after the 1AR or 2NR, for instance. Not particularly good reasons, but the reasons exist. And, of course, it can be very strategic – as if we needed another way to make 1AR restarts OP.
Condo logic: I have judged my fair share of rounds where a debater goes for condo logic, and I must admit that I don’t think I’ve ever heard it well explained. There’s usually a much easier and comprehensible path to the ballot. I think circuitdebater.org sums my feelings up quite well: “If you are confused how the argument reached that conclusion, good. The argument is completely invalid!”
F tier
These are bad arguments that probably don’t deserve the title of ‘argument’. Not much else to say.
Eval the debate after X speech: Unwarranted, probably outside of the judge’s jurisdiction, and the antithesis of educational. Plus, if you really think you’re winning it, then why are you wasting my time giving the rest of your speeches? It’s obviously strategic in front of judges who will vote off it, though.
I’m the GCB: No, you’re not, you’re 16 and probably not even speaking clearly enough for me to catch you saying it. I have never heard this argument have anything close to resembling a warrant. This category includes Ice Spikes, but at least if you’re reading that I might get to hear some music.
Frivolous theory (bad): I have split frivolous theory into good and bad on pretty nebulous terms, but I think there have been shells cropping up this year that merit this division. Interps that have problematic usages or implications and violations that are just blatantly and verifiably false belong in this section – we all know your opponent didn’t punch you while the judge was blinking. Just read a better shell. These are the epitome of cheap time-sucks.
Takeaways
Update your tricks files.
Seriously – a lot of the triggers, explanations, and so on that tricks debaters read are getting stale, and it seems like old files are just used out of laziness. You’ll note that many of my critiques of lower tier tricks are that they’re poorly explained, and I don’t think (at least for B tier averaging tricks) that that’s an inherent issue with the arguments, it’s an issue with no one wanting to find and cut a better indexicals card.
My concluding question to tricks debaters is: wouldn’t the trickiest move of all be to write NEW and GOOD explanations for your paradoxes, frivolous shells, and hijacks?
Eva Lamberson competed in Lincoln Douglas for four years at Canfield High School in Ohio. Eva was a two time NCFL Grand National Tournament qualifier, a tournament which they championed in 2018. Eva was also a two time NSDA National qualifier, where they advanced to round 12 both years, placing 15th in 2017 and 11th in 2018. They have been coaching for four years, and are currently the LD coach for the Hawken School. Eva has coached students to qualify to all three major national tournaments - NSDA, NCFL, and TOC. Students Eva has coached have reached late outrounds or finals at tournaments like the UK season opener, Yale, Durham, the OH State Tournament, NCFLS, and NSDAs, and have championed tournaments like Pennsbury, the OH State Tournament, and the NCFL Grand National Tournament. Eva was on the 2023-24 NSDA LD Topic Wording Committee. They studied philosophy, English, and religion at Youngstown State University, where they championed the 2020 Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl National Competition and the 2023 NEDA National Competition in Policy. Eva has worked with VBI for six years and is the Director of Social Media.