Combo Shells
Introduction
Combo shells are a type of theory shell read when some combination of arguments are abusive. That is, Argument might not be abusive alone, and Argument might not be abusive alone, but combining Arguments and produces some abuse story.
For example, suppose that the negative says the affirmative should not get access to 1AR theory, and that the affirmative should also not get RVIs. The affirmative might read a combo shell on this, saying that these two arguments combined deny the affirmative access to offense on the theory layer since they cannot read their own shell, and they also can't get offense without the RVI.
Notice how the abuse is conjunctive – denying the affirmative access to 1AR theory might be fine on its own, or denying the affirmative access to the RVI might be fine on its own, but when combined, these two arguments become abusive.
Strategically Deploying Combo Shells
Combo shells are strategic because the abuse story between them is generally true if done correctly. A few tips can be used to maximize strategic potential:
1–Debaters reading a combo shell should always make an infinite abuse claim, which means that it justifies their opponent getting away with functionally anything and winning every single round.
2–Remember to win a conjunctive abuse story. One common mistake that debaters often make when reading combo shells is by justifying each plank in the shell is bad, but not why reading every plank together in conjunction is bad. Looking back at the example above, the shell is saying that it’s okay to read evaluate the theory debate after the 1ar or that theory in the 1ar is drop the debater, but reading both together is specifically a bad thing. Similarly, every combo shell needs to prove why reading each plank together is uniquely bad, not just why each is individually bad.
3–Don’t read multiple combo shells in one round. There may be exceptions, but generally, the responses to combo shells are the same, so there is no reason to read multiple because the responses to one shell would just respond to the other as well.
Responding to Combo Shells
1–Contest paradigm issues–win drop the argument (if you made an abusive argument, then the judge should just discount that argument instead of making you lose the whole round) and reasonability (you don’t need to prove your norm is good, but just that it isn’t super abusive)
2–Answering the abusive argument solves–in the context of the shell above, yes it was abusive to say 1ar theory is drop the debater and evaluate the theory debate after the 1ar, but that just proves why it justifies a bad norm, not why the act if actively reading the two was abusive because the neg could obviously just respond to the argument.
3–Critical Thinking–being forced to think in tough situations like the one put in from the abuse forces debaters to think on their feet like they would in the real world, which is good for education.
4–Not Conjunctive Abuse–as explained above, if a shell justifies why each plank is bad but not why the reading of every argument in CONJUNCTION is bad, then it doesn’t solve the abuse and is generally arbitrary
5–Leveraging spikes against the shell–for example, if the neg read a shell saying “must not say aff theory is drop the debater and neg theory is drop the argument,” the aff could go up in the 1ar and justify neg theory as drop the argument to take out the combo shell.
Example
To give a formal example, we can look at this shell:
Interpretation: The affirmative must not deny the negative an rvi to aff theory and claim an rvi to neg theory.
The standard is strat skew - affs get a 2:1 theory advantage because they can either win off of my shell or their own shell while I can only win off of my shell - that creates irreciprocal theory burdens and destroys any chance of norming since either negs have to go 7 minutes all in on theory regardless of how friv it gets since nothing else matters OR they don’t read theory at all and affs get away with infinite abuse
As shown, there is one standard (strat skew) but impacted to three different things. First, reciprocity (2:1 skew), second, norming (friv theory which can also be an education claim) and infinite abuse (chilling). Additionally, the abuse is conjunctive–reading no neg rvi or yes aff rvi are fine independently, but reading them in conjunction is bad because it creates a 2:1 skew.