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NPDL Nationals & Round Robin

National Championship Tournament in Open, Novice, Middle School
Round Robin Tournament for Qualified Top-Ranked Teams

May 9-10, 2026 hosted by the National Parliamentary Debate League

TOPICS
All divisions will use the topic strike procedure for all rounds. In all divisions, at least one preliminary round will be on: Artificial Intelligence Ethics


ROUND RULES
This tournament follows the NPDL Round Rules.
Partner prep only/no coach or team prep; 20 minutes prep time; no grace periods; POIs/POOs/POCs are allowed.

AWARDS
Awards will be mailed to all semifinalist and above placing entries in all divisions, plus top speakers. Please complete the awards form.

ELIGIBILITY
- The Round Robin division will be invite-only, based exclusively on NPDL team rankings as of April 1, 2026. Approximately 12 teams will be invited to compete.
- Middle School division is for students grades 5th-8th. Novice and Open is for students grades 9th-12th.
- Every school may enter up to 8 teams in each of the Open, Novice, Middle School divisions; any additional teams will be waitlisted.
- A novice debater is a 9th or 10th grade student who is in their first academic year of debate competition.
- Hybrid entries (two students from two unique schools, academies, or programs) are allowed.
- Programs not affiliated asNPDL member schools will be charged an additional $100 program fee if they have multiple entries.
- All students must be registered under their school, academy, or institutional affiliation.
- Students may choose their own display team name, subject to tournament approval.
- Hybrid teams of students from different schools should be registered using both school names.
- A homeschooled debater who affiliates with a member school is exempted from the $50 non-member fee.

MAVERICKS
- The NPDL defines Parliamentary Debate as a two-person team debate event, i.e. both partners should debate in every round.
- In unusual circumstances beyond the debaters’ control—where one partner is ill, has technological problems, or is otherwise unavailable—the team will forfeit up to one prelim round without further penalty and can still break to elimination rounds.
- If the team mavericks a second time, they will be auto-dropped from the tournament.
- Mavericks may be permitted on a case-by-case basis in the Middle School (MS) division with Coach and Tournament Director approval.

JUDGING

- The judge requirement is 1 judge per 2 entries, and the judge ratio is rounded up.
- A limited number of hired judges are available at-cost at $350 for the tournament, which covers 2 entries.
- The judge requirement is calculated separately for Open and Novice. For example, 3 Open entries and 5 Novice entires would be covered by a total of 5 judges (2 for Open, 3 for Novice).
- All schools must cover their full judge obligation for prelims and the first elimination round. In addition, all Sunday judges from a given school are obligated for one round past the elimination of the last team from their school.
- Each team may strike a TBA number of judges.

A judge must:
- be fluent in English,
- be familiar with the basic rules of parliamentary debate,
- have a device with a working camera and audio,
- have experience using video conferencing,
- be at least 18 years old and not be a current high school student (exceptions may be made for NPDL-member high school students to serve as Middle School-only judges)
- be reachable at all times by phone while they are in the judge pool.

After submitting their ballots, judges may (but are not required to) give brief feedback and/or disclose the winner of the round. Judges on a panel should decide independently and not confer with other judges about the result before all judges have submitted their ballots.

FEES & PAYMENTS
Middle School/Novice Parli: $40/entry
Open Parli: $60/entry
Round Robin: $100/entry
NPDL non-member schools and private academies will be charged an additional $100 program fee.

The preferred method of payment is online through PayPal. Please be sure to indicate the school name, and, if this is a partial payment, which team or judge obligation the payment is intended to cover.

If fees are a barrier to your participation, please email us at npdlboard@gmail.com explaining any extenuating circumstances and the level of support you'd need to participate in our tournament.