2022 Pre Regionals Case Changes Predictions

Case Changes are allegedly coming next week, or at least the week after that. Thoughts on which changes we will be seeing, and which changes you would all like to see?

For me I think most of the changes are going to benefit the defense greatly (as they should). I think they're going to beef up assumption of risk much much more because rn that theory is honestly a struggle with the witnesses D has. They'll also probably offer more easter eggs in Felder, Roy for Fullertin and Engine Failure.

I tend to agree - boosting the other two affirmative defenses would be helpful just to make them viable.

We’ll see if this bucks the trend of favoring P in case changes though.

The last 4 or 5 years case changes have released on a Monday or Sunday the first or second year in December, so you can expect them to release on one of those days next week.

As for actual changes, I think people expecting a lot of changes in defense's favor are going to be disappointed. Fundamentally, this case has to have really bad affirmative defenses or it will be astoundingly defense favored because the plaintiff cannot call rebuttal witnesses. I'm expecting relatively balanced changes, hopefully giving Moore and Heisman more flexibility to be called in cases that aren't strictly affirmative defenses.

I think the biggest cause of the case imbalance right now is the fact that there aren't crossable D facts in a handful of affidavits. Even with engine failure (imo the most viable D theory), there's not an obvious cross pocket for Felder, Gelfand, or Roy--potentially 2/3 of a P call order. Of course, teams are going to adapt by writing creative crosses, but when one side of the case has a substantially greater difficulty in writing simple and logical cross content, that's going to give the Plaintiff side a pretty substantial advantage. It's a simple fix to balance that, and I think they'll address the issue that way rather than making any monumental changes to D witnesses.

I'll throw my hat in the ring here - I'd guess that AMTA is going to strengthen either Fullertin alone or both Fullertin and fireworks to match bad engine. I'd guess that they won't want to mess with assumption of risk at all because they have little data on it and would rather not take the chance of messing up the balance by throwing in something unpredictable