Our heroes arrive at the Battle Dome where Ash faces off against the theatrical Dome Ace Tucker in a double battle to try and win the Tactics Symbol.
Tropes:
- Brain Bleach: May and Max imagine what their father would look like if he dressed like Tucker — and immediately wish they hadn't.
- Graceful Loser: After Ash defeats him Tucker accepts defeat, even claps for Ash for a well fought battle, and convinces his fans to the same.
- Plot Armor: Not as bad as say "Dazzling the Nimbasa Gym" but Ash's Swellow and Corphish were repeatedly thrashed by Swampert and Arcanine but still managed to win when they only landed about 2 moves each.
- Remember When You Blew Up a Sun?: Tucker makes a big show out of his matches, so he trumpets Ash up, with reciting his accomplishments: achiveing high ranking in all three tournaments he entered up this episode, and winning the Orange Leauge.
- Throw the Dog a Bone:
- This is one of the few episodes where Team Rocket doesn't go blasting off.
- Ash gets his accomplishments acknowledged for one of the few times in the series. Usually, he suffers from Dude, Where's My Respect? with people only bringing up his blunders.
