PTP03

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.
==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 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 into , 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===
* Ava
* Ava's father
* Ava's mother
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* Celestine
* Team Falinks
** Edgar Troy
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==Cards featured==
Ava's cards
* Oddish (SVP Promo 102)
* Gloom (Lost Origin 2)
* Vileplume (currently has no real-TCG equivalent)
* Spoink (currently has no real-TCG equivalent)
* Tropius (Scarlet & Violet 7)
* Bounsweet (Chilling Reign 13)
* Steenee (Chilling Reign 14)
* Tsareena (Chilling Reign 15)
* Turtwig (Brilliant Stars 6)
* Scyther (Astral Radiance 5)
* Darkrai ex (currently has no real-TCG equivalent)
* Grotle (Brilliant Stars 7)
* Bellossom ex (currently has no real-TCG equivalent)
* Roselia (Sword & Shield 3)
* Defiance Band (Scarlet & Violet 169)
* Galar Mine (Rebel Clash 160)
* Battle VIP Pass (Fusion Strike 225)
* Nest Ball (Scarlet & Violet 181)
* Professor's Research (Scarlet & Violet 190)
* Rare Candy (Scarlet & Violet 191)
* Ultra Ball (Scarlet & Violet 196)
* Grass Energy
Joshua's cards:
* Pikachu (Paldea Evolved 62) (×4)
* Jolteon ex (EX Delta Species 109) (×4)
* Charizard (Base Set 4)
* Meganium ex (EX Unseen Forces 106)
* Dialga LV.X (DP Promo 17)
* Butterfree (Rebel Clash 3)
* Dusknoir (Plasma Blast 104)
* Chaos Gym (Gym Challenge 102)
* Lightning Energy
Celestine's cards:
* Misdreavus (Paldea Evolved 87) (×2)
* Mismagius ex (currently has no real-TCG equivalent) (×4)
* Shuppet (Scarlet & Violet 87)
* Duskull (Brilliant Stars 60)
* Dusclops (Brilliant Stars 61) (×2)
* Dusknoir (Plasma Blast 104)
* Sableye (Lost Origin 70)
* Meowth (Noble Victories 102)
Edgar Troy and Team Falinks' cards:
* Falinks ex (currently has no real-TCG equivalent)
* Machop (Lost Origin 86)
* Machoke (not shown)
* Passimian (not shown)
* Drilbur (Fusion Strike 147)
* Groudon (currently has no real-TCG equivalent)
* Riolu (Scarlet & Violet 113)
* Lucario (Scarlet & Violet 114)
* Iono (Paldea Evolved 185)
* Defiance Band (Scarlet & Violet 169)
* Fighting Energy
Misc players' cards:
* Comfey (Lost Origin 79)
==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: .
===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 .
** 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 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 and .
* 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 .
* Joshua has a Charizard (Base Set 4), which is famously one of the most sought-after cards in the Pokémon TCG.
==In other languages==
03
Category:Episodes which aired in the United States before Japan
de:Pokémon: Der Pfad zum Gipfel Folge 3 – Internationalmeisterschaften
es:SC03
fr:AAC03
it:VC03
zh:寶可夢 巔峰之徑 第3集