Permutations

Perms 

What are perms? 

Perms are a test of competition, this means they question whether the aff and any counterplan or kritik can coexist. For example, perm do both means that you are testing whether the perm can coexist with the affirmative on base. 

What makes a legitimate permutation?

A legitimate permutation is any permutation that includes all of the affirmative and all or some of the mandates of the negative’s position without adding anything extra. Adding something not included in either makes a permutation intrinsic and removing a part of the affirmative in a permutation is severance. This means that things like perm do the aff and any combination of the planks of the counterplan is legitimate whereas perm do the first half of the aff plan and the counterplan is not. 

Why are perms strategic?

Perms are an essential part of every affirmative strategy against negative advocacies for 2 main reasons and  a few other less important reasons. 1) The time trade-off of a permutation is very high, it takes 2 seconds to answer a permutation but is round ending if it is dropped. That means that especially in LD it is a very important way to fix the timeskew that exists for the 1ar. 2) Absent permutations the aff loses to any counterplan that simply does the aff which is certainly round-ending 

Perm do the counterplan 

Perm do the counterplan is functional just a test as to whether the counterplan is the aff. This does 2 things 1) it forces explanations as to what the counterplan actually is which means its much easier to win solvency, 2) in a decent bit of cases the counterplan does what the affirmative is doing, making perm do the counterplan a legitimate strategy. 

Perm do both 

Perm do both is probably the most common type of permutation and it simply asks whether they can coexist in the same world. Like perm do the counterplan it forces an explanation but usually every counterplan is built to beat perm do both so while it is a good time usage 95% of the time it cannot end up being the 2ar. 

Perm do aff then neg or perm do neg then aff

Perm do aff then neg is a test as to whether any sequence of the affirmative and the negative can exist with a set of sequence to it. For example if the negative creates conditions for a stable economy that the aff then wants to use to do something such as create climate technology then sequencing would solve it. The issue with this permutation is that sequencing is intrinsic. This is because neither the affirmative nor the negative adds sequencing. There are two options though in light of this, 1) the aff can make warrants as to why intrinsicness is good, 2) the aff can use this permutation as leverage as to other arguments. For example, if sequencing solves then maybe something the affirmative does can artificially create sequencing without it being intrinsic.