Lone Star District Qualifier

for the 2020 National Tournament

District Tournament Pilot Rules

There are two types of Pilot Rules used at the District Tournament in 2020. One set determine how the tournament is run, the other addresses specific rule changes in the events themselves. Lone Star is using both types of Pilot Rules. It is the responsibility of each coach to be familiar with the new rules and to make sure their students are also aware of and follow the rules. 

Lone Star is using this Pilot Method for debate:  Single Elimination Bracketed Tournament

• 4 prelim rounds required, or 3 rounds if there are 4 entries

• 1 judge will be used in prelims.

• Rounds 1-2 will be preset, and the rest will be powermatched.

• Entries with winning records will advance to elimination rounds (4-0, 3-1, and/or 3-0, 2-1 records)

• Elims use 3 judges.

• Speaker points are awarded to determine seeding in elimination rounds. Speaker points have no

bearing on who clears to elimination rounds.

• Same school hits are protected against in prelims, but not in elims.

• Advancing entries will be placed in a single elimination bracket (ex. 1vs.8, 2vs7, etc.) The tournament continues until the number of entries active is equal to or lower than the number of qualifiers.

Speech Pilot

Features of the speech pilot:

• Minimum of 3 prelims

• 2 judges will be used in prelims. All speech events must use the same number of judges in the prelim rounds.

• Prelims will be preset with varied speaker order.

• Judges rank each entry 1-7; no ranks are adjusted.

• Events with 8 or more entries must advance to elims. If there are less than 8 entries, no elims

are required.

• The District Committee will announce the number advancing to elims in each event before the tournament begins. The break point must meet the following minimum standards:

• A minimum of 25% of an event’s entry total (rounded up to the nearest whole number)

OR 4 entries, whichever is smaller, must advance in each event.

• All entries whose rank totals are tied with an advancing entry must also advance.

• Seeds going into elims are determined by rank total, dropping the highest rank if each entry has

4 or more scores.

• Elims are snaked, and speaking order is determined based on previous speaker positions.

• Placement after each elim, including finals, will be determined by:

• Add total ranks in all prelim rounds, dropping worst prelim rank

• Add total of elim ranks multiplied by two

Congress Pilot

• Minimum of 2 rounds

• One of those rounds must be a final round (Senate will have a morning Prelim chamber and an afternoon Finals chamber with all students continuing to Finals; the House will have morning Prelim chambers and then advance a previously announced number to a single afternoon Final chamber). 

• Each round should be scheduled to allot a minimum of 10 minutes per student in a chamber,

e.g. a 20 student chamber should be at least 200 minutes long.

• Coaches will select which chamber their students will compete in but may not change later unless it is to balance chambers.

• Scoring will be done the same as the previous district tournament method, with students with the lowest cumulative rank total advancing to the next levels of competition (in the House).

• The Senate will use student cumulative rank totals to determine national qualifiers while the House will use ranks from the Final round to determine the national qualifiers. 

A full Pilot District Tournament Manual is available online: https://www.speechanddebate.org/pilot-districtqualification-manual/