How strong of a debater is [Barney], actually?

Despite Ragnar's claims that he went toe-to-toe against Roy, it's difficult to say for certain precisely how strong of a debater Ragnar actually is, since he has never been remotely challenged (unlike Oromagi, who at least went against Jeff from the top 20). 

Judging from his abortion debate against PGA (the only truly competent person who debated him on DART), it's difficult to say for sure. He kept continuing using the idea of "collection of cells", which surely would've fallen under a more competent debater like MisterChris. His comparison to slavery was hard for me to tear down, but I knew it was flawed, and Chris notes that the women's own choice makes it difficult to sustain (not to mention I could only find one research that said 92% of abortions are unintended pregnancies). Pro also didn't use the uncertainty principle, which was Chris's nail in the coffin that defeated me. I don't know if Ragnar would've been able to link the legality impact, as Ragnar's analysis of specific laws and politics are uncertain (unless he's actually on Roy's level). As for my personal loss, it's well known that I am pretty much way below average when playing devil's advocate for the most part.

Going through his DDO debates though, it's definitive that he's probably at least above average level, if not on Oromagi or Whiteflame's current level. He managed to defeat an above average user about sociology. And while Oromagi was still in his unstructured version, some one random voter was convinced that Ragnar won about self-driving cars (though to be fair, Oromagi was fighting an uphill battle). The closest Ragnar was to being beaten was in a Star Trek debate, where bladerunner voted in his opponent's favor (though Maikuru has not been defeated either, and voted for Ragnar). He definitely has improved since, but due to lack of debating against serious opponents, it's difficult to say if Ragnar is truly on Roy Latham's level. I heavily doubt he would win big issues, such as gun control, death penalty, etc. How good do you guys think Ragnar actually is? 

He's actually extremely strong. I think you should stop making these posts before you know what you even mean by 'strong' debater.

I prefer the term 'skilled' because a debater such as myself is skilled at weakening my opponent rather than myself being very strong. 

Ragnar is actually extremely strong and understands both voter perception and the mechanics of burden of proof on each contention itself in ways very few do. He never lets the opponent have a free argument pass by and delivers many strong ones of his own, with the rebuke to the rebuttal to each of his points already prepared in his mind, I am sure.

I have never once seen Ragnar be in a situation where he doesn't know how to counter the opponent. He thinks the entire debate through start-to-end in all ways it can play out, prior to engaging in it.

yeah, but if he is actually forced into an extremely difficult debate we don't know if he will actually be victorious. Ragnar's own victories are so hollow that they are basically cherry picking mediocre people who never have a chance. Roy on the other hand has consistently defeated really, really skilled debaters.

For example 16kadams whose elo is above 5k couldn't win against Roy [https://www.debate.org/debates/Resolved-The-United-States-Should-Adopt-an-Open-Border-Policy/1/],

Conservative politico with 4k elo failed to win (https://www.debate.org/debates/The-US-is-justified-in-preempting-the-spread-of-nuclear-arms./1/),

he almost tied with Raisor with 4 point difference (https://www.debate.org/debates/The-Americans-with-Disabilities-Act-should-be-repealed/1/),

did very closely with TUF (https://www.debate.org/debates/Anime-studies-should-be-offered-in-American-high-schools/2/),

defeated Danielle (https://www.debate.org/debates/Philosophy-and-the-humanities-are-underrated-in-education./1/),  and again [https://www.debate.org/debates/Rush-Limbaugh-was-slandered-by-racist-charges./1/, and again (https://www.debate.org/debates/Nationalizing-health-care-in-the-U.S.-would-increase-its-cost/1/)

beaten Larz the Beast slayer (who I remind you, beat Whiteflame two times) [https://www.debate.org/debates/Governments-should-value-economic-equality-before-prosperity/2/], and did it again [https://www.debate.org/debates/People-should-have-the-right-to-make-dangerous-choices./1/], and again [https://www.debate.org/debates/That-it-should-be-a-criminal-offence-for-a-politician-to-lie/1/]

defeated Fourtrouble two [https://www.debate.org/debates/The-United-States-should-have-a-general-policy-of-free-trade./1/] times [https://www.debate.org/debates/Affirmative-Action/15/]

Can we say for certain that Ragnar could defeat the Beast Slayer three times? We don't know. His analysis seems nowhere as strong as Whiteflame, especially as he struggled in the Jeff vs Oromagi debate. We don't know he could battle Raisor and do well, nor stand among the ranks of Danielle, Four Trouble, or even 16kadams. We haven't seen his true potential and he definitively choses to avoid extremely skilled debaters, even on DART there's blamonkey, Jeff, Oromagi and Whiteflame who are very dangerous. He hasn't even debated MisterChris on his strong belief of abortion, where Chris is arguably the best anti-abortion debater (unless Whiteflame got something). Even if he is actually better than Oromagi still, he refuses to even take the risk to lose, so he is a worse debater, because he does not want to take the risk of losing. you grow more in a failure than a success.

the debaters widely considered the best can debate anyone, any time. Ben Shapiro doesn't back down when he's faced against someone like Jordan Peterson. We've seen him lose, but that makes all his fast talk and wins that much more impressive.

You've said it yourself Seldiora, we haven't seen Ragnar debate anyone "competent" therefore coming to any conclusions on it isn't warranted. However, based on his votes, and analysis alone, I would easily put him top 10 if not top 5 here. I agree with RMM that he has a very in-depth knowledge of how the actual interworkings of a debate work. Now, could he be less skilled than his analysis suggests? Yes, but typically how well you can analyze and break down arguments is a good indicator of a skilled debater. For that reason, I would put Ragnar within the ranks of Whiteflame, Oromagi, Misterchris, Danielle, and all of those debaters.

i guess he also took the risk that my anti abortion argument could be as strong as my anti smoking and gun control ideas. He definitely thought things through and if I was MisterChris I still might’ve lost because of his slavery comparison

Well, debaters aren't constrained by an argument, but I agree that Ragnar is stronger than you give him credit, or at least he seems so.

As for the central question, I think Ragnar has earned both his record and reputation. He’s a very formidable debater, and I suspect that if we did have a debate, it would be very challenging for me. Not that I’m prone to ranking lists, as I think a comparison of debaters regarding who would win really only works when you’re talking about their performances on specific topics (you can compare styles, but quite honestly, even throwing everything I’ve got into it, I’d be perfectly awful in a religion debate and I’m pretty poor in pure philosophy - only did that once and, though I won, I didn’t feel like I did well), but I do think Ragnar could stand toe-to-toe with anyone on the site on a variety of topics. There are only a handful of people I could say that about, so I’d count him as one of the best around.

I think your style of argument is more for actual implementation or logic of ideas. Based on what I've seen, you would probably lose in a debate against weakeredge about if Death Penalty was moral or immoral, but you would destroy him either way with actual implementation (deterrence, impact of different execution methods, etc.). With your debate about firing squad vs Nitrogen you showed because you valuate impacts better than the average person you are able to show the problems lacking in terms of practicality. However, MisterChris tends to take a vague overall ideology approach (remember how he compared absolute vs relative poverty in globalization), that is harder for "impact based" ideology to defeat. That would explain why Raisor couldn't beat Imabench with Lion King vs Frozen. Raisor is golden with politics because it's a very widely agreed upon topic where many experts can easily show why you can't like, drill in Alaska, or use fossil fuels, or anything else. With Lion King vs Frozen, he's forced to think about cinematic elements which is heavily out of his league. Even you would lose against Imabench in my opinion. Yes, you could ask, "where is the impact of the 'true love' message in Frozen", but the fact of matter is he could still show that Frozen's unexpected twist, despite its stupidity, shows Disney's willingness to break out of its shell. And the songs are indeed more meaningful than Hakuna Matata or Can You Feel the Love Tonight. 

Again I would just say that Ragnar is a strong debater, so yes, he deserves his spot for sure.