>>50409329>>50409347Right before that episode, Ash gave Serena the advice that "Nothing you do is ever pointless", and in the gym battle, he goes against it by trying to show it by implementing Tierno's strategy, before deciding that it really is pointless.
The reason I compare it to the Elesa episode is that in it Ash tries to think "strategically" and gets his shit handed to him before having a similar realization to the Korrina one, saying it's pointless. They're basically the same episode.
Also Pikachu jobs to regular Lucario, yet somehow, without any strategy, actually negative strategy, or special training beats a Mega Lucario. Yeah, I'll take SM any day.