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PTP03

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← PTP02 : Regionals
Pokémon: Path to the Peak
PTP04 : Worlds →
Internationals
PTP03.png
  PTP03  
第3話
Episode 3
Web release
Japan August 25, 2023
United States August 23, 2023
English themes
Opening None
Ending
Japanese themes
Opening None
Ending None
Credits
Animation TAIKO Studios
Screenplay Benjamin Townsend Benjamin Townsend
Storyboard Ian Mutchler Ian Mutchler
Assistant director Shaofu Zhang Shaofu Zhang
Animation director Qinghui Lü Qinghui Lü
No additional credits are available at this time.

Internationals is the third episode of Pokémon: Path to the Peak. It was first released on the official English Pokémon YouTube channel on August 23, 2023.

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Spoiler warning: this article may contain major plot or ending details.
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Blurb

After a major upset at Regionals, Ava continues her journey on the path of the Pokémon Championship Series at International Championships.

Plot

In the weeks since Ava's Regional Championships win, she draws massive attention online, and receives coaching from Joshua and Celestine. After several tournaments, she qualifies for the International Championships, and travels there along with her father, Joshua, and Celestine.

Soon after arriving at the venue, a hotel, Ava's group encounters Team Falinks: a group of five top TCG players in the league, headed by Edgar Troy, the reigning world champion.

The next day, Ava, Joshua, and Celestine split up to compete in their matches. Ava manages to reach top cut, but Joshua and Celestine are quickly defeated by members of Team Falinks, much to Ava's worry. To help calm Ava's nerves, Joshua and Celestine take her to a windy garden on the roof of the hotel. Ava brings her shoebox of cards along and leaves them on a bench, but the wind causes almost all of her cards to blow away - leaving one copy of her Oddish as the sole surviving card. Ava is devastated, and unable to sleep that night.

The next morning, Joshua and Celestine hatch a plan: by trading away their own cards, they can reconstruct Ava's deck such that it matches what she registered for the competition. The plan is successful, but Joshua and Celestine's card binders are completely emptied by the end of it.

Ava climbs the ranks and makes it to the championship match against Edgar Troy, defeating the four lower members of Team Falinks in the process. Ava begins the first game strong by playing her Darkrai, but Edgar concedes the game immediately afterwards. Edgar then wins the second game, leaving the match up to the final game. Ava manages to gain an advantage, with only one prize card left to win - but Edgar disrupts her strategy by playing a card that puts all of Ava's hand back into her deck. Edgar follows up by evolving his Riolu into Lucario, giving it a Defiance Band, and using it to defeat several of Ava's Pokémon over the next few turns. Before long, Edgar draws his last prize card, winning the game and the match.

Ava maintains her composure to shake Edgar's hand, but leaves the stage distressed at letting down her friends and supporters.

Major events

  • Team Falinks is introduced.
  • Ava loses almost all of her original cards, save one copy of her Oddish, to the wind.
  • Joshua and Celestine trade away all of their cards to restore Ava's deck.
  • Ava is defeated by Edgar Troy in the championship match.

Characters

Humans

Pokémon

Appearing on merchandise

Cards featured

Ava's cards

Joshua's cards:

Celestine's cards:

Edgar Troy and Team Falinks' cards:

Misc players' cards:

TCG mechanics

Some mechanics from the real-life Pokémon Trading Card Game are applied during this episode's matches. This section explains them in-depth, to help give context to certain scenes.

The overall rules of the TCG can be found here: How to Play.

Edgar's "set-up"

In the final game of the championship match, Edgar plays Iono (Paldea Evolved 185). This card makes both players shuffle their hand, and then put the cards at the bottom of their deck. If this effect causes either player to put cards at the bottom of their deck, then each player draws cards equal to the amount of prize cards they have left.

  • By playing this card when Ava had 1 prize card left but Edgar had multiple prize cards left, Edgar effectively throws away Ava's entire hand, puts those cards at the bottom of her deck where she cannot reach them for a while, and reduces her hand to 1 card. Meanwhile, Edgar's large amount of remaining prize cards means he gets to draw a fresh hand of multiple cards.
  • Effectively, the "set-up" is that Edgar intentionally let Ava claim multiple prize cards and build up a plan of attack, so he could then disarm her offense at the last minute and make a counterattack.
  • Joshua states that Ava has to "shuffle her entire hand into her deck" - this is technically not true, as the hand is shuffled first and then put at the bottom of the deck, rather than putting the cards into the deck and then shuffling the deck. The former case is worse for Ava, as it means she cannot re-draw the cards from her old hand by random chance.

Misc errors

  • In the picture Joshua shares of a practice match with Ava, Ava's Vileplume does not have a Gloom and Oddish under it, implying it was played directly. This is illegal - that Vileplume is not classified as a Basic Pokémon, thus it cannot be played directly like that.
  • In Ava's match against a player using a Comfey, the Pokémon are able to damage each other despite neither having any Energy attached to them. This should not be possible, as the damaging moves on both Pokémon require Energy.

Trivia

  • The video-sharing site shown during the episode's opening has a thumbnail of Bidoof's Big Stand, an animated short also produced by TAIKO Studios.
  • The song that Ava's father plays in the car is the extended version of Pokémon World.
    • In the Japanese dub of this episode, the beat of the song was kept and the lyrics were dubbed into Japanese. This was done instead of replacing the song with the corresponding Japanese opening theme, which would have been The Rivals.
  • The mother and daughter pair seen in this episode bear a striking resemblance to a similar pair that have made cameos in several Pokémon movies.
  • The banners at the International Championships venue have at least one Pokémon representing each generation, with the exception of generations II and VII.
  • In the scene where Ava shuffles her deck before her first match, her Oddish (SVP Promo 102) card is the only card that is upside-down.
  • This is the only episode of Path to the Peak to show prints of cards from the Wizards of the Coast Expansions.
  • Joshua has a Charizard (Base Set 4), which is famously one of the most sought-after cards in the Pokémon TCG.

In other languages


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