Mattson,+Nicholas+(Nick)

TL;DR :P Let The Games Begin! Do what you want, for the most part. Be clear, concise and weigh your arguments. Give clear voters and try not to win off of defense. Be smart, strategic and above all respectful to me and your opponent.

Credentials- I debated on the Eagan LD team for 4 years in MN. I debated both national circuit and locally. I preferred circuit debate during my time. That was MY preference. I love any style of debate that you prefer, as long as you pull it off well. Whether your traditional, circuit or experimental hit me with your best shot. Let’s have a fun debate :) NOTE: Don’t cite my paradigm as evidence to automatically abide by, or exclude certain advocacies, offense, defense, etc… Whatever I have under my preferences and defaults shouldn’t be what I use to evaluate the round, this is what I use in the absence of you doing your job. Paint a clear picture of what your advocacy is, how it functions in this round and with your opponent’s advocacy. Give me clear weighing analysis, impacting and linking and you shall please me. I try to be fairly tabula rasa (you know, as best I can) with a few reasonable exceptions, but for the most part you can run anything you want in front of me as long as you explain it well.

Speed- I’m alright with speed so long as you are clear. Slow down for tags and card authors and any sort of bullet-pointing whether it is lettering, numbering etc. I highly doubt that you can outspread me, but if you are too fast I will say __“slow down”__ and won’t dock speaks unless you fail to adjust. I will review any evidence I feel that I missed due to my incompetence if that occurs. If you are just unclear, you get one __“clear”__ then you shouldn’t expect much on the flow or good speaks.

Framework- I love good framework debates. I mean, it is how I evaluate the round, so it's definitely worth your time. I love philosophy and how individual debaters interpret the resolution. If your arguments are strategic and engaging you can expect some pretty good speaks. However, there unfortunately does need to be some healthy balance of framework and offense. Framework isn’t a voting issue in of itself until you link offense back into it.

Offense/Defense- Warrants need to be clear, links need to be specific. The more effort/strategy you put into your arguments, the better they will be evaluated. A blippy argument will be easily defeated by another argument of an equal one sentence length.

Theory- I ran SOOOO MUCH theory as a debater. That being said. Don’t run blippy ass theory or sketchy offs that have some magical implication to drop the debater just because that is how theory functions. You need to be very specific of the abuse in round and flesh out all your support for your implications. If you run theory for the sake of theory you will get very low speaks, and your opponent won’t have a high threshold for answering it. If there is real abuse this shouldn’t be very hard to avoid. Don’t think I’m not open to most theory args, I very much am. You just have to do a good job running it. I will not listen to speed theory or disclosure theory unless there is a tournament rule requiring it. One of my biggest fears is that someone will be too afraid to run theory in front of me so their opponent will just wipe the floor with them and get away with abuse. Also, I am very interested in hearing what you feel debate should be like, so even if it doesn’t immediately strike me like “A Priori’s Bad Theory” if you can provide good, logical reasons why this should be a rule/guideline and why it warrants your implications I’ll be glad to vote for it. I love theory, but let’s make sure we keep it at least fairly legit please.

K’s- I love them SO MUCH. I also ran a ton of these during my time. I love it when you can also prove to me that you actually understand the arguments you’re making (hint hint don't run things that you can't explain yourself). If you can do this, you’ll escape with high speaks and likely the round. I especially love it if it takes me by surprise. Alt’s have to be something better than drop the opponent and/or rethink mindsets, RoB/J that's a different story. Micro-pol is okay, but you’ll really have to explain how the debate community can actually have an effect in tackling your problems. I’m fine with pre and post fiat k’s. The same standards I have for theory and all other arguments apply here.

Performance- I love a good performance. Again, I enjoy debaters speaking from their heart on issues that they find important. Make sure it isn’t too sketchy though and that it has good impacts. These arguments aren’t automatically free from theory/topicality/k violations in my book, so be careful on that note (or be prepared to engage in those discussions. Other than that I totally feel that they are a fun break away from the standard structure. It isn’t a sin to have fun! I'm not a fan of reject the resolution cases unless you can give me some seriously well-thought out and passionate rationale.

Speaks- I don’t evaluate who spoke better as a voting issue. HOWEVER, I am a human being and unfortunately I’m not a robot who can cut out my emotions. As much as I hate to admit it, I have the same gut reactions and suffer from the curse of the emotional appeal. I’ll try my hardest to minimize this, but help me out and just be strong, assertive and dominant (not overtly). Confidence won’t win you the round, but it is going to be harder for me to vote for you if I feel that even you doubt the credence of your arguments. Argue with me right after the round and I'll dock 2 points. Honestly, I thought I was gonna be a total point fairy, but I'm finding myself growing ever-so cynical. But it still breaks down like so: 30- Will you marry me? 29- You are worth nine out of my ten goats. You aren’t the top of my list, but you're pretty damn close. 28- Not Bad. 27- Alright, could’ve been better, but it could’ve been a lot worse. You're very talented. 26- Yikes, need a bit of improvement. It’s okay though, everyone has a bad day. 25- I am horrified by how bad this was. <24- Dude, dudette or dudex… get your shit together. 20- You have learned my paradigm like the back of your hand just so you could strategically piss me off.

Tricks- I can vote for them just fine and won’t drop speaks on face value unless it's offensive. I won’t protect you though when someone runs theory or some other sort of off all over you. Aside from that, I was a very trick heavy debater (remember I did love the national circuit) so they can be a guilty pleasure to see in the round. The same mechanisms I have for evaluating regular offense goes here, just understand your argument aside from the tag line and don’t just rely on dropped 5-7 word spikes. Actually explain the implications of it and why this is so. In terms of triggers, I’ll only evaluate if you make it clear what triggers it __beforehand__. If you trigger it and it makes me do a double take, it probs wasn’t clear enough.

Topicality- I evaluate it almost the same as theory. I prefer to evaluate it in terms of limits. I’ll be open to however you want to run it though. I never ran it that much unless it was against a reject the topic AC or some other glaringly obvious misconstruction of the res.

LARPing- It’s alright; I don’t like policy-making, but I will vote on it and I feel that it is unfair that I automatically reject frames of minds that don’t suit my bias. I also will not dock speaker points on face value.

Presumption/Permissibility- Meh, can we not… Please… I know what I said about tricks but these I find are the lowest of the low. ***Also side note, not all actions are morally permissible, claim otherwise and I will hit you with a shoe.

Skep- I can feel my hypocritical hatred towards you already. If you plan on running this, it has to rock my world and make my whole life suddenly make complete sense. I can vote for it, like all tricks, *sigh* but I would prefer you not to try and wash the round to presumption or automatic truth-testing burdens. Also, I don’t have a high threshold for answering it.

Defaults -I prefer to examine the resolution through a desirability point of view, yet truth testing and comparative worlds is 100% alright with me. If you have some other evaluative mechanism I am fine with that so long as you explain the function and implications well. -I default to competing interpretations. However, I am EXTREMELY easy to sway one way or the other with good reasoning, especially if there is clear abuse. -I default to Fairness as a voter, but again EXTREMELY easy to sway for education or any other voter. -I default to grant an RVI under the circumstance that a debater has sufficient turn ground against the other’s standards. However, absent this turn ground and without clear reasons why I should grant them under other circumstances I go back to evaluating substance. *I am going to try and defend you as best as I can if you point out real abuse, i.e. you run a good theory shell but the negative puts 500 blippy theory spikes you can never respond to. But there is a point where you need to be able to defend yourself, I can’t intervene to protect you on everything. -I presume coin flip. -I don’t presume a risk of offense. -Debate is about what you want it to be, if you want that to be critical, stock, value or an entire AC made with pre-emptive theory go ahead.

Preferences -I won’t vote for some intuitive bads such as rape or racism good, but death good still somehow amuses me. Just be careful and weigh the risks of running some of these arguments. -Be respectful, there is no need to be a total ass hat. It isn’t worth it. -I prefer Counter Plans to be non-topical. -Disads need a strong link and strong internal links, be sure to also weigh effectively. -Aff’s don’t __always__ need a solvency advocate in my mind, it really depends here. That is a bias, I will evaluate what burdens you as the debaters come to a conclusion on so if neither of you make an issue out of it I won’t lose sleep over it. If you run a counter-plan though I will be very angry if I don’t see one. K’s I greatly prefer one, but not 100% needed. -A role of the ballot for k’s and performances or other sorts of interesting offs would be nice, but not totally necessary depending on how the argument functions. -No matter how well read I am in a particular topic and/or literature don’t rely on me to fill in the gaps for you, your job as the debater is to explain and know what you are advocating and to persuade me to vote for you. DON’T MAKE ME DO ANY WORK FOR YOU!

Don’t be afraid to ask if you're confused on anything, I’ll only punch you semi-hard ;)