Online Challenges

Challenge another player, or the AI, to a written debate on any resolution the site lists, in any format. Rounds are asynchronous: each side has 3 days to answer the other's speech. When the last speech is in, an AI judge picks the winner and explains why. Wins earn Debater Level XP, a win-streak boost and trophies.

• Route: /practice/challenges, the first row of the sidebar's Practice section (with Practice Drills and Practice Partners)
• Package: debate-practice-rounds (src/debate-challenges/)
• Engineering note: dev-docs/internals/online-challenges.mdx

Sending a challengeCopy Anchor Link

1. Opponent. Pick AI opponent and a level (Novice, Varsity or Champion), or Another player and find them by name.
2. Format. Public Forum, Lincoln-Douglas, Policy, College Policy (NDT), Parliamentary or Worlds.
3. Resolution. Every topic in the site's topic list for that format, newest season first, labelled like "2026-27 · Sep · 💾 Hyperscale Data Centers". Choose Write my own… for any other motion (Parliamentary and Worlds have no fixed topics, so they always start there).
4. Side. Affirmative or Negative. The Affirmative speaks first, so an Aff challenger writes the opening speech before sending.
5. An optional note to a player.

How a round runsCopy Anchor Link

Four speeches, alternating: Affirmative constructive, Negative constructive, Affirmative rebuttal, Negative rebuttal (up to 9,000 characters each).

• The opponent's first speech is how they accept. They can also Decline. Until they answer, the challenger can Withdraw.
• Every speech restarts the other side's 3-day clock. The board shows how long is left on each round.
• Missing your window forfeits the round to the other side. A challenge nobody answered just expires, with no winner.
• Either debater can Concede a round in progress.
• Against the AI, its speeches are written the moment it is its turn, in the style of the level you picked.
• After the fourth speech, the AI judge decides on the arguments made in the round and writes a short reason for decision.

You get a notification for every challenge, speech, forfeit and decision.

XP, boosts and trophiesCopy Anchor Link

The boost is your win streak: the second win in a row pays 1.5×, the third and fourth 2×, and the fifth and every one after 3×. A loss resets it. The board shows the boost your next win will get.

XP is added to your Debater Level automatically the next time you open the page after a round ends, once per round (a second device doesn't collect it again).

Trophies: First Victory (first win), Iron Debater (10 rounds), Hat Trick (3 wins in a row), On Fire (5 in a row), Contender (10 wins), Champion (25 wins), Machine Breaker (beat the Champion AI), Format Master (5 wins in one format), All-Rounder (wins in 3 formats) and Crowd Favorite (beat 5 players).

LimitsCopy Anchor Link

• 10 challenges to players waiting on a first answer at once, and one at a time per opponent.
• 10 new AI challenges a day.
• Guest accounts can debate the AI but not challenge players.