NDT '26 Musings

Tournament Recap

Emory GS wins! They defeated CSU Long Beach MO in the finals on a 3-2 decision. More on this in a bit.

No team made the NDT the first tournament they cleared at for the season. That makes the count 56 distinct teams clearing at one of the 6 majors + the NDT.

Upsets to report from smallest to biggest:

Emory LY (17) defeating NYU MS (16) in the doubles on a 3-2

Kansas OW (18) defeating Iowa AP (15) in the doubles on a 3-2.

Texas FL (22) defeating Michigan ES (11) in the doubles on a 4-1

Liberty CL (24) defeating NU LR (9) in the doubles on a 3-2.

The NDT doubles never passes without its toll paid in heartbreak and tears.

Tournament was mostly chalk after that - Michigan BP (10) beat Emory KS (7) in the octafinals on a 5-0.

The top 4 seeds made the semifinals and the top 2 seeds made the finals.

Aff vs Neg

The affirmative side won:

• 5 of 13 doubles debates (38%, three byes)
• 3 of 7 octafinal debates (43%, one walkover)
• 0 of 4 quarterfinal debates (0%)
• 2 of 2 semifinal debates (100%)
• 0 of 1 finals debates (0%)

That is 10 out of 27 elimination debates for the affirmative (37%).

By my count for all the 2025-2026 tournaments at https://collegedebateresults.vercel.app/ the negative won 52.2%. 2200 affirmative wins vs 2402 negative wins.

At the NDT I have all the results as 169 affirmative wins and 170 negative wins (49.9 vs 50.1)

Round the First

Lot of people with the computers out pretending to work.

Find anything else to do before Gordon says the phrase.

Either you did something in the 6 weeks between Texas and the NDT or you did not.

Question

"Is this case thing going to turn into a PIC at any point"

"We don't know how to do those, so no"

Honest answer is good. Would have also accepted "if we figure out what is by the 2NC, maybe."

Email Chains and Debate Docs

So what is the barrier to other tournaments doing this setup the email chain thing? The subjects of the email were maybe a little bloated but fine. The sides in the email thing was inaccurate in elims. But overall good. Let's just make it happen across the board.

And wowowow a shit ton of debates were on debatedocs and hell didn't freeze over and people still updated their wiki and people just knew what was going on and everyone lived happily ever after.

A better world of info sharing is possible and this weekend was proof.

Random Question #1 - Skews

People came up to me and asked me random shit, so here is me answering it according to the robot on my computer.

First question - which judges were most skewed either affirmative or negative on the labor topic.

Affirmative:

Negative:

Hybrid crap

I was judging round 3. One of the judges was online. The other in person judge came to the room, discovered the online judge and said they would judge in their hotel room. That did not seem like a good protocol but who is to say.

That judge appears back in the room in the middle of the debate...shocker.

The real punchline though is that the 2NR gave the speech with the online judge entirely muted.

The first thing that is said after this, once the judge is taken off mute, is "keep going" Ok, that's definitely not the right answer.

Another person meekly asks "should we talk to the tabroom?" Not a bad place to end up.

I am culpable in this because I do not really say anything. The resolution was the 2N saying it was their mistake, so he was going for the other two judges.

I believe the online RFD was "I heard the 1AR and 2AR so Aff" but I may be paraphrasing that wrong.

There are two layers to take away from this:

First - hybrid tournament schedule, not hybrid tournaments. Mix in person and online tournaments throughout the year but do not do hybrid tournaments. I believe high school mostly landed here and they are smart for it.

Second - if hybrid debates continue they have to not be life-denying. One kid's computer completely melted down because of Zoom tax (reasonable). One judge rendered a decision after hearing 4 aff speeches and 3 neg speeches. I was party to an online tournament where a judge committed a crime during prep time on camera. I obviously do not have any faith in online judges or judging.

Day 1 Highlights

UTD PR broke "pre-hire collective bargaining agreements for construction workers" and beat Kansas OW on a 3-0 going for Ban Unions. Aff did not perform so good the next round vs Emory GS, but whatcha gonna do?

Northwestern LR reads their own version of the Bankruptcy Aff and beats Kansas LS for the first time. Kansas LS 5-0 prior to that vs NU LR. They won on socialists can't build roads? Only private equity can build roads?

Random Question #2

"When did Missouri St last clear at the NDT"

I believe 2012 - Jordan Foley and Wes Rumbaugh. Foley was a 4 time NDT qualifier and elim participant.

There be some kernels in those Mo St docs. Someone is chopping and churning over there.

Remember kids - Martin Osborn (Missouri St legend) went 3-5 at the NDT twice before going 6-2 and making it to the semifinals. It is a process not an event.

Federal Worker Debates

Round 3 - Emory LY vs Michigan ES. Michigan goes for two DA's and a CP and wins? Ok.

Round 4 - Michigan ES vs NU LR. NU reads the Iran DA with the following:

3-0, NEG

Round 5 - Kansas OW vs MSU GL. MSU goes for politics. 2-1 Aff. A real agenda off between these two teams.

Round 6 - Emory GS vs Kansas OW. Kansas goes for the whole reform the civil service + get rid of Republicans CP. 2-1 Aff.

Round 7 - Kansas OW vs Macalaster HK. Macalaster goes for flavors of hegemony bad. 2-1 Neg. The streets are saying Kansas got robbed.

Round 8 - MSU FM vs Dartmouth CG. Dartmouth hits em with this:

2-1 Neg, naturally.

Doubles - Michigan ES vs Texas FL. Texas goes for T-no fed workers. Wins 4-1?? Nice.

Octas - MSU GL vs Dartmouth CG. MSU reads an advantage featuring the Iran war and Dartmouth tries to turn that without success.

We will do a final parsing of federal workers another time. For purposes of the NDT, it seems you needed to come with one more strategy in the chamber.

Just Admit It

Walking back to the big room and I hear the end of a story being

"just admit you like riding Northwestern's dick"

Many such cases.

King of the New Aff Hill

There are two contenders it seems for this award - Georgetown AC and Michigan BP.

Georgetown AC read: Climate Bargaining, Gig Workers, Federal Workers, Journalism, Automation (Gonzaga rd 4), Marxist Automation (Gonzaga rd 8), Space, TSA, Waivers, LPE, God Aff (lol), Data Privacy and Algorithmic Governance. So that would be 13.

Michigan BP read: Federal Workers, Bankruptcy, Automation Sectoral Bargaining, Sectoral Bargaining, Secondary Strikes, Gig Workers, Takings, Glacier Northwest, Waivers, Finance Sectoral Bargaining and Company Unions. That is 11.

Georgetown wins!

I will say I did enjoy how many times Michigan was able to break the same affirmative across multiple rounds this year. That's a fun one on the bingo card.

Where did we go wrong - Theory 1 - Impacts

"Existential w/30" of whatever you are cutting is a curse.

Debate's issue was never "getting to impacts is hard." That part always came together.

There has never been a problem with a file where the fix was more "existential laundry list cards."

The debating has devolved into "problems are bad + solutions are good" The internal links are becoming as nebulous as the impact slop.

Debate used to have like 6 impacts and you picked one of them at a time and it was fine. Better than fine. When both sides read random existential laundry list cards debates devolve into conceding and cross-applying away everything (or everything is uncontested and thus huge). You did not have that issue when one side said disease and the other side said Indo-Pak war.

Neg vs Old

NU read Bankruptcy in K and policy debates. Michigan read waivers adapting it from Gtown AC. Obviously Federal Workers still around. MSU read Foreign Service more in prelims. Dartmouth continued reading ag cooperatives. Berkeley kept doing their data and data adjacent and workers in front of keyboards affirmatives.

Neg docs didn't make it seem like "crush old" made it on squad's assignment list or files got across the finish line. Pity

Commitment to the Bit

George Mason read another antitrust affirmative about non compete clauses continuing their year long bit of being the antitrust team instead of caring about CBR/unions team.

I like it when teams have bits. It is important for a good metagame.

Prelim New Affs

The ones that caught my eye remaining were:

Round 4 - Gtown AC - "bargain over electronic surveillance over the managerial prerogative"

Round 5 - Gtown AC - The United States should institute a duty for agencies to engage in collective bargaining regarding the decision to use algorithmic governance.

Round 8 - Michigan BP and SS - The United States federal government should substantially strengthen collective bargaining rights for workers through sectoral bargaining in the financial sector.

In order of what occurred:

Cal MR goes for the Cap K. Aff wins

Emory goes for T-duty + Security K. Neg wins but not sure the split on why.

BP vs Gtown - Round 8 - Bonds DA. Gtown wins 2-1.

SS vs UTD PR - Round 8 - hegemony bad. SS wins

Comebacks

Berkeley BU and Texas FL both 3-3 after 6. Both won round 7 and 8 to clear. Texas FL pulled up to debate Kansas LS in Round 8 and came away with a 2-1 victory. It ain't over until its over.

EDIT - Kentucky RS was also in this boat. Congrats to them for winning back to back to clear.

NDT Doubles - Form

Back in the day, I said the following:

Clearing at the NDT is one of the hardest things and any team that pulls it off should be very very proud of the team effort it reflects. With that said I would not wish the NDT doubles on my worst enemy.

Still true! But the reasons this year are:

First - there were 3.5 hour decision times??? And some judges decided to take the entire time?? Malpractice.

Second - the issue is compounded by the fact this time is spent writing decision thoughts that cannot be delivered in the moment.

I like the idea of writing good decisions. But that would work better if judges wrote them out post decision and better yet published them for consumption. The winners want to get to the next one. The losers do not generally care. Even when they care they do not care about the 30 minute version of a decision. Someone might care, but that requires publishing after the fact I imagine.

Third - judge scouting. Meaning, judges, you have an obligation to the seniors who give a shit to give them a proper sendoff. It is not really entirely on you (friends, teammates etc. do most of the heavy lifting) BUT you can really botch it and some certainly did in the NDT doubles. Really tough to watch.

NDT Doubles - Substance

13 debates. 8 K debates right from the jump. But also Michigan BP went for Buddhism and Cal MR went for the Cap K. So really 10.

MSU went for Politics, Texas went for T vs Federal Workers and Dartmouth went for Corporate Debt in the other 3 debates.

Of the 10 debates that we will call K debates - the results were 6-4 for the K.

Impact Turns

They are not for the faint of heart. I understand why people thought their heg bad piles were going to be useful, but the argument has sucked for a long time and no recent event has really made it better. Hegemony good has gotten a lot worse as well no doubt, but that doesn't make the turn any better.

But I wanted to highlight MSU GL and Dartmouth CG in the octas. The debate highlighted two things necessary for negative success:

First - 1NC crafting - pressure the 2AC, don't open yourself up to redundancy or harmful cross applications. The 1NC did not really pressure the 2AC in this debate

Second - answering every part of the original impact. MSU said we have to win the war. First, to deter Russia and China from escalating elsewhere. Second, to prevent Israel from nuking Iran. There was also a part of the advantage that said hackers and crap could spiral to detonations in the US??

Dartmouth counters that if the war proceeds as is then we will revitalize a partnership with Ukraine which could help in Europe and the Middle East. MSU shotgunned Russia and China so we are not external yet.

Then Dartmouth says middle powers will fill in now and that is good. Spillover to AI governance, solves laundry list, whatever.

With that turn - you don't need to spot the affirmative Iran strategy will work. You can say that the plan fails AND crowds out middle powers. That really needed to get in there.

You could have invoked ideas brought up in earlier debates, like Michigan vs NU, which defined what it would take to sustainably solve the Middle East (regime change).

At the end of the day:

• need external impact. MSU got to polycrisis + Russia + China + Israel. You cannot counter with Ukraine war alone + middle power/AI/poly goo. Not external! If that's all you got you need to double down on MSU doesn't accomplish shit BUT still triggers links.
• need to turn or takeout each Aff scenario. In this debate the Aff said Iran war being lost now, so negative should have said the opposite. That would have provided a blanket answer to things like Israel strikes.

Formatting Gimmicks

It's as bush league as bush league gets. You are surrendering to the idea you are not lifting the trophy when you agreed that was an idea worth caring about during your preparation. I am talking about nuking the document map, reading crap on paper, sending out fake plans, sending 5 emails to complete a 1AC.

The scroll ahead is not why you are going to lose. The fact you invested any energy in this bucket of nonsense instead of producing a better argument is why you are going to lose.

Monday New Affs + Fun Args

MSU in Quarters - The United States Federal Government should fortify collective bargaining against the presumption against extraterritoriality for workers in the United States temporarily stationed on the Earth’s moon.

Didn't go back and look how different this was compared to Georgetown's thing from semester 1. Did chuckle a lot while reading it. Love legal controversies on Earth and everyone asks "but what if we were on the Moon?"

Emory KS in Octafinals - The United States federal government should substantially strengthen collective bargaining rights for professional baseball players in the United States.

These fools sent out each advantage one at a time and messed with the document map and lost on a 5-0, so let that be a lesson. You never know how much goodwill you will need.

BUT, on the brightside

Cartelism ensures Minor Leaguers are in the dugout.

That makes it the bottom of the ninth for the Minor Leagues. Bargaining’s the key pinch hitter.

The plan’s a home run, and the U.K. catches the ball, causing modelling across the pond. 

Soccer’s uniquely key to kick off British soft power. 

A strong relationship saves European populists’ free kick.

Them scoring is extinction.

Flood is entering the seventh inning stretch. Momentum is latent to overturn the MLB’s antitrust exemption.

The exemption balloons stealing attempts of illegal streaming.

Pirates reaching second locks in an RBI for illegal gambling.

Berkeley MR in quarterfinals read - The United States federal government should legalize tender offers to substantially strengthen collective bargaining rights for workers in the United States.

Emory GS read teachers in the semifinals. They did just send it out and win, so take that under advisement. They did not have any jokes in the tags as far as I know.

One last fun one I will highlight that was actually from a prelim:

Now was this an opportunity to runback wolf spirit murder because being incorporated into labor regimes is terrible? Yes. Was that opportunity taken? No. The impact was the meat industry.

Octafinal Breakdown

5 K Debates, that MSU/Dartmouth Iran debate and Michigan BP going for a Treaty CP against baseball.

Counterplan Tiers

Bottom tier - generic slop that can be read on any topic. Signing statements. Veto cheato. Impeachment whatever. Assassinate whatever. Various forms of private actor fiat. Unclear if uncooperative federalism goes in this tier or the next tier.

Middle tier - process CP's that don't really have to do with the topic. These are usually carried forward from another topic.

A tier - still process so the goal is to either do the affirmative via a different route OR recommend the plan in a way where it happens. We are still entirely agreeing with the affirmative BUT these process CP's are topic specific and have more competition arguments based on topic words.

S tier - PICs mainly. On this topic they would be CP's that did not engage with CBRs at all.

Which leads me to - I thought the co-regulation CP Michigan read in the quarterfinals to defeat MSU's Moon Aff was pretty good. Wage boards for the Moon. So elegant. So simple.

State of K Debates

I watched a lot on Monday. Gtown/Bing. Long Beach/Michigan. Gtown/Long Beach. Didn't watch the finals live but I have since watched the tape.

In no particular order:

First - Long Beach said that debate never steps out of its comfort zone. I would posit this is exactly debate's comfort zone. It sucks, but no one really seems eager to act otherwise.

Second - policy affirmatives could be way better vs identity based arguments. I would suggest focusing on a few things. One, I would assume the main goal of a 1AC needs to be defeating fiat bad arguments, but the 1ACs I see are full of bloat and irrelevant stuff that doesn't advance that cause.

Two, I would think about what the 2AR you want to give is and work backwards and just plug things into your 1AC that setup the inroads or analogies or whatever you want. This is mainly to avoid reading irrelevant shit.

Three, I would focus on saying what the other side is doing is bad and I would do that with as little debate terminology as I could. The way the negative team positions themselves in these debates is not singular. There are lots of real world analogs you could invoke to make an argument. Faux radicalism, grievance based politics, individualization, bad faith, etc.

Third - like I have said previously, the affirmative teams doing all this fairness framework debating is still weird to me. But if it gets W's, whatever I guess. Not how I would go about doing things.

Fourth - I don't really talk about K debates because they are boring but it is not topicality's fault. When the affirmative doesn't really interpret the resolution or present roles for the affirmative and negative and when they do not play enough defense that is not interesting.

Further, when they present arguments where it ultimately comes down to the burden of proof judges will or will not accept for "is this practice policing" "is this practice violent" "what do I think the history of debate has to do with this current debate" and other such lines of argument, it is boring. It is further boring when the other team doesn't more aggressively pursue offensive arguments. Lot of dodging, lot of shirking, lot of mumbling when what is going to be said is very predictable at this point.

Fifth - I would go for other stuff that is not topicality during the season to keep people guessing.

Sixth - all this background checking on social media is boring at best and toxic at worst. This is a common phenomena in the world writ large so it is disappointing when the other side does not have a thought out set of arguments about why we should not be investing in this mode of engagement.

How to read K's well on the negative is very interesting to me. How to write good affirmatives to defend against K's is very interesting. How to defeat topicality in various ways is interesting to me. How to defeat critical affirmatives without topicality is sometimes interesting.

The majority of the approaches affirmative teams take in defeating topicality are boring to me. Invoking the history of debate or getting into the history of opponents to make people feel something (or make people fumble the ball), eh, boring.

One Question

"Who voted on New Affs Bad?"

David Griffith shoots his hand up

"Ok, we are good."

I did like this trend of seniors just ejecting immediately after the last debate being over. Seems like it took us a while to figure that one out as an option.

Emory LY

Walked over last year. Walked over this year. Tough way to go. What's the negative position for breaking brackets at the NDT?

They did their debating while I was off doing other things mostly, but from what I gathered this year debate would better and stronger with more partnerships like Emory LY. We should give future teams like Emory LY the ability to go out on their own terms.

Emory GS

8 wins 23 ballots.

Bye, Walkover, 5-0 NEG vs a new affirmative, 5-0 AFF breaking a new affirmative, 3-2 going for topicality vs a K aff.

1st and 6th speaker. Copeland winners.

Word on the street the first team since Northwestern GS to do Champion, Top Speaker and Copeland at the same time.

Curious if anyone had any anti-Emory strategies in their box that they did not get to use.

Good dudes. Good range of arguments. Weird they like mutually flow in one google doc or whatever and keep dropping conditionality (this is how you do a compliment sandwich). Very good speeches I saw in the semifinals and finals. They seem to love the game and are worthy champs.

Good NDT everybody.