Be The Judo Master

Most of the rounds I have seen this year have played out via the following script:  The first two constructives are fast and detailed, but the LOC rarely interacts much with the PMC and relies on a generic counterplan or criticism to avoid the necessity of making line-by-line responses.  The member speakers attempt to race down the flow and cover every argument as fast as they can, the team that has less technical class inevitably concedes a few too many arguments, and the rebuttals do little except extend what conceded arguments they have.  Almost always, in this situation, the higher-ranked team will win, because all things being equal, the higher-ranked team is usually better technically than the lower-ranked team.

Nobody seems to realize that this is not a game you have to play as a lower-ranked team.  It certainly isn't the game you want to be playing.

Say you were playing football, and a 6'5, 350 lineman was racing at you.  You could try and block them, get in their way, match force against force, but if you are only 5'10 200, it's a game you will lose 99 times out of 100.  But it turns out, there is this other discipline out there.  Judo!  Instead of trying to meet force with force, you use your opponent's force against them, by applying all of your energy to one crucial point of leverage which sends your opponent flying into a wall.

You can see where this is going.  If you are every in a debate round against a more technically classy team, you should be figuring out how to use Judo.  Points of leverage are arguments that the other team MUST win in order to win the debate round. 

Say you know your opponents are very fast and technically classy, and you consider yourself to be a slow MG.  They read a procedural, Keystone XL Politics, a Courts CP with a substantial solvency block, and a slew of defensive arguments on case.  As the MG, you feel like even if you went at your top speed, you wouldn't be able to respond to everything.

If you find yourself in this situation, and you want to win, you MUST be strategic.  One simple way to be strategic is to use the following plan:

Answer the procedural
Concede Counterplan Solves the Case
Concede the case defense
Concede the uniqueness, link, and internals on the D/A
And...impact turn the d/a for 5 minutes.

Even at top speed, the LOC probably didn't spend more than 30 seconds to 1 minute on the impact level of the D/A.  Even your slowest 5 minutes will be more than adequate to fully and completely answer their impact arguments, as well as make your own impact turns.  And guess what - the MO is screwed.  They have to win this argument or they lose the debate, because by making strategic concessions, you've made the D/A the only distinction between the aff and the C/P, and thus the central question of the debate. To steal from Joe Dudek: the team that gets deeper, faster on the central questions of the debate round is the team that most likely will win the debate.

I'll let you in on a little secret.  Good teams don't like to actually have to win arguments.  They want you to make a major strategic error that lets them waltz to victory, or make a slew of concessions that means their rebuttalist don't have to think.  You can ask any top MO in the country, and they will tell you that the above scenario is an absolute nightmare for them, and the one thing they hope will not happen against a lower-ranked team.

Another reason this works is that while the rankings are usually excellent determinants of technical class, they are usually not a good indicator of the knowledge base of the debaters.  Of the three parts of the triad earlier (strategy, technique, and erudition) erudition is probably the least important of the three when it comes to actually winning debate rounds.  I've met plenty of top debaters who were strategic and technically skilled but not in the least bit erudite. 

But if you use the following strategy, you neutralize the strategic and technical advantages of better debaters.  If the debate is about one central question, they can't be crafty and exclude you from the debate, and if you get a massive time tradeoff on the other positions in the round, their speed and efficiency won't be able to make up for it.  So then the debate comes down to: who knows more about this one specific issue?  I guarantee that is your best shot.  Even if you hit a team that is well known for being erudite, you can easily hit them on a topic that is their weak spot; after all, college students don't exactly know everything.

Be the Judo Master.  Try it, you'll like it.