GDT 11 Finals - Foxxy Judgements

GDT 11 Finals
Okay, this is a long one. Lot of points to work through. Let me say that I personally feel both debaters did an exemplary job with this debate (with a caveat, see below). Being a GDT judge has been an enlightening experience. With this particular debate, I’ve judged prior matches of both participants and am subsequently familiar with a lot of their claims in regard to their own teams – consequently I’m putting less emphasis on feat dumps and stats. Instead, I want to look more at the actual meat and potatoes, and how well certain points were argued and their implemented strategies.
Fem’s first response is a big old feat dump, it doesn’t really have any arguments or points to make besides “my opponent’s team as argued throughout the tourney is about as fast, my team has the durability to eat my opponent’s damage, and my opponent’s team can’t handle my offense.” Mik brings this up later, but there’s not a lot to engage with here. It’s more nuanced than “My team strong, your team weak” but it’s not different from an argument standard. It’s non-committal, it plays it safe. I think this strategy works to the detriment of Fem, especially as the debate gets more heated in the later responses.
Mik is more straightforward and aggressive. This 1st response in many ways drives most of the points of contention throughout the debate. The points of initiative, speed, offense and defense presented here drive pretty much everything they argue over. I found the scan here of Ben countering Edward’s TP to be of particular note which is especially damaging to Fem’s general strategy. It doesn’t help that Fem’s points regarding Edward ignoring pain aren’t exactly convincing. That being said, as the debate plays out I think it’s evident that BB is pretty bad, but Mik makes up for it with strong points for Peter and Ben as well as effective downplaying as the debate goes on. Strode was also argued particularly well here despite his (and method users in general) myriad of getting shot feats.
Fem also deserves credit, and from the outset I think it’s Fem’s match to lose based on how he’s performed throughout the tournament so far and the ammunition he’s gotten from prior rounds against Mik. His team is incredibly synergistic, Wonder Woman and Edward do a lot of heavy lifting and the general strategy of holding back while Samus shoots has worked thus far. However, cannonball doesn’t really add anything to this strategy and Mik provides evidence that he can be knocked out of his powered state. Combining this with at least temporarily disrupting Edward (Fem’s lynchpin) paints a rough picture. Then, there’s the following;
There’s a fundamental problem with each debater’s 3rd responses that creates a problem that has been discussed between the judges. That problem is using image albums to add more of the debate points and bypass the character limit. Both debaters do this (even if Mik’s is just a response). You can’t reasonably compile an album of 17 images and demand your opponent respond to all of them. It sets a precedent where a debater could take a character with hundreds of appearances, create an album of 100 or more images and say “respond to all of these or you concede anything left unaddressed” and then attack them because they weren’t able to respond comprehensively due to character limits WHILE ALSO creating their own arguments. I believe this will lead to a rules change for future GDTs. We don't need
arguments in imgur albums.
So if I’m looking at the above. I see a “play it safe” first response, some problems with the 3rd response, and some key arguments against Fem’s team that disrupts its synergies and overall strategy both in the debate and how they are argued. Fem fails to convince me that she can comfortably deal with Peter and Ben with just Wonder Woman and Samus. Strode, maybe. But Mik’s individual team member strengths are proven to be superior when the synergistic team’s strategy is successfully disrupted.
Winner: /u/mikhailnikolaievitch