Pokemon Weekly News Roundup [April 17 - 23]

Hey guys, [member='Chris'] here with something I'll be doing every week from now on - the Pokémon Weekly News Roundup! This will include a more compact version of the week's news regarding the Pokémon Video Games, Anime, Trading Cards, Merchandise and any other Special Announcements that are made. It'll also be a place to discuss sch topics without having the site flooded with separate topics for literally everything. So, without further ado, let's get right into it!

VIDEO GAMES
For the main series:
The prizes from the previous Global Mission are now available through the Global Link! Log into your Global Link account, then come back here and click this hyperlink to receive your unique serial code for some free Rare Candies and a Love Ball!
Registration for the 2017 International Challenge has begun. It is a double battle competition using the VGC ruleset. Registration will be open from April 19th at 00:00 UTC to April 27th 23:59 UTC and battles will run from April 28th to April 30th. All entrants will get the Sceptilite, Blazikenite and Swampertite Mega Stones. Players that are part of the Play! Pokémon program will also earn Championship Points if they rank high enough.

For the spin-offs:
Pokémon Shuffle has received its weekly update, which has included new Special Stages. Check in on your game to see what's available!
Pokémon Shuffle has begun a new Gym Cup Event; the Grass Gym Cup. During this event, all Grass-type Movement 1 & 2 figures get an increase of 1 for movement and Poison-types getting an Attack increase of 20 for each attack. There are also special prizes to be won.

ANIME
For the main series:
A new episode has aired in Japan this week. This episode was titled "Here's a Real Shocker! A Dugtrio Split-Up?!". Next week's episode will be titled "Alola! The First Visitation Day!!"
The Pokémon Company and Disney XD have revealed that the Pokémon Sun and Moon anime will finally start airing for western audiences starting on Friday, May 12th.

For the movies:
There has been no news regarding Pokémon movies this week.

TRADING CARD GAME
There has been quite a lot of news regarding the Pokémon Trading Card game this week. The next English set, Guardians Rising, has been fully revealed, as well as all the new cards from the Japanese set, Best of XY. We've also had the reveal of the next English set, Burning Shadows, set to release sometime in August, and focuses on Necrozma and Ho-Oh. The details on all these cards and more can be read over at PokeBeach's TCG page.

MERCHANDISE
In contrast to the Trading Card Game's extensive reveals this week, the Merchandise news is quite small, with nothing very big being announced this week. If you're interested, head over to Pokeshopper.com's News page to read more.

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS
There have been no Special Announcements made this week.

Well, that's it for this week! Feel free to discuss any of the news down below, and I'll see you all next week! This is [member='Chris'], signing out!