The Equestria League is ready to begin at last! However, before the battles can begin, the competeting trainers must first go through the preliminaries to achieve the 16 best among them. Everyone must race through the mountain and pass through three levels to reach the stadium and qualify for the official League. Flash and Springer soon find themselves competing for the last slot against one of their most hated rivals.
- Beneath the Mask: Timber normally acts like a typical "cool guy", but when he runs into Flash at the last door on the third level he lets some of his true personality show when he says he was hoping he would get to beat Flash in order to get into the League, showing he has specifically been targeting him.
- Big Ball of Violence: This is used in the cartoon to demonstrate the rules to the trainers. Cartoon versions of Galladin and Hariyama fight, causing one to form around them, until Galladin wins.
- The Big Race: The preliminaries for the Equestria League is essentially a race to get to the stadium and qualify. All 128 trainers race through the mountain and must pass through a door that acts as a checkpoint on each level to continue. But a door can only be opened once, and will only open once two trainers have hit the button for the door and then battle each other, with only the winner proceeding. There are three levels that must be passed through to get to the stadium, with the trainers being cut in half at each level until only 16 remain. The 16 trainers that make it through to the stadium move on to the main tournament.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The battle between Springer and Breloom is pretty one-sided for the most part in Springer's favor. Flash and Springer have a counter for nearly everything Timber and Breloom try. The only time Breloom has control is when Springer falls asleep due to his Effect Spore, attacking Springer while he can't defend himself, and even then Springer wakes up pretty quickly.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Lightning is still extremely jealous at how many people are cheering for Flash during the tournament.
- Laser-Guided Karma: After everything Timber did to Flash back at Camp Everfree, Flash ends up defeating Timber in the preliminaries, preventing him from officially entering the League. Also, just last chapter Timber was boasting of how he would easily win the whole tournament, ignoring Lightning's warning that he was begging to get beaten before the tournament started with that attitude. Turns out that is exactly what happeend.
- Loophole Abuse: One of the rules of the race says no attacking trainers or Pokémon outside of battle. Early on though, Lightning has Roglacier use Blizzard to block the path he goes down. They never said anything about not using moves to block paths, just as long as they aren't directly attacking anyone else.
- Sore Loser: According to Flash, Timber did not take his loss very well.
- Tempting Fate: When Flash and Timber learn they are battling for the last door and last slot in the tournament, Timber boasts that luck seems to be on his side for not only finding the last door but getting to beat Flash like he hoped for. What follows is a pretty one-sided battle that ends in Timber being eliminated and Flash moving on to the tournament.
