Wuerth,+Silas

Experience: Debated on the national/ TOC circuit from 2011- 2015 at the University School of Nashville

In short: I’m not beholden to any type of argument. Give me what you’re best at articulating and tell me why you should win. My job is to vote for arguments not cards, and I’ll rarely call for anything after rounds. An argument is a claim and a warrant, and I won’t reward blippy one liners you may think your opponent dropped.

If you keep that in mind and do your best to maintain a friendly in- round environment you should be great. That said here are some other thoughts:

Topicality: Although I consistently defended plans while debating, I can easily be persuaded to vote against FW, especially because a lot of teams are bad at going for it. If you want to go for FW I’d recommend impacting out fairness arguments, b/c I think the threshold for solving for portable skills is pretty low. Against plan Affs: I probably lean Aff here and think that reasonability is a good argument if explained well. If you go for T, do impact calculus like you would with a DA or something.

Ks: Don’t ignore the Aff. Contextualize your K and explain how its impacts interact with the Aff. I read a variety of Ks as a debater and am familiar with most literature, but don’t rely on buzzwords. Explain things. If you’re Aff: I think perms are persuasive.

CPs: I probably lean Aff on CP theory. I think condo is fine, but other than that I think Conditions and Agent CPs are pretty abusive. If you’re a 2A don’t be afraid to commit the 2AR to theory against a CP. That said, I’ll only weigh arguments I can flow so don’t speed read through theory blocks too quickly in earlier speeches. . DAs: Good DAs are awesome. I’ll reward you for turning the case during the block especially if it’s far up the internal link chain.

Case: Smart analytic arguments by the neg can go a long way in mitigating case. Offense on case is also great. Likewise, I think add ons are underutilized and can really make the block hell.