Gamer

"He's unbeatable! He's a total rock-solid! He's got the highest APM over anyone!"

- Lê Chiến Kim

"" is the twenty-second episode of the first season of Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir. It first premiered on September 24, 2016, on Nickelodeon and February 10, 2017, on Netflix.

Nickelodeon
When Max loses a challenge at a video game tournament, he gets akumatized into the Gamer and unleashes a giant robot onto Paris.

Netflix
Marinette beats Adrien's video game tournament partner, Max, so she can replace him and spend time with her crush, but Max akumatizes into a villain.

Plot
Marinette is writing in her diary, discussing how Cat Noir almost discovered her identity in an attack earlier that day. Tikki stops her, reminding her about a presentation she has to do with Alya. Marinette grabs her phone, puts her diary away, and leaves her room, heading to the school.

She enters the school's courtyard, hearing a noise coming from the school's library. Marinette goes to investigate, finding Juleka, Alix, Mylène, Alya, Miss Bustier, Mr. Damocles, Rose, Kim, Nino, Nathaniel, and Ivan watching Max and Adrien play the game Ultimate Mecha Strike III. Adrien's character is NAD03, and Max's is MX-01. Since Marinette has no clue as to why they're playing a video game, Rose cuts in and explains it to her: there's a video game competition between schools. Kim says that the qualifying round happening in the library is to determine who is to be partnered with Max since Max has been practicing for months.

NAD03 defeats MX-01, making Adrien the number one player in the school and Max's partner. Everyone cheers, except for Max. Instead of brooding for long, Max congratulates Adrien and looks forward to their partnership. Marinette thinks for a moment, realizing that whoever beats Max's score will become Adrien's partner. Alya pulls Marinette to the side, telling her not to try to beat Max and not to flirt with Adrien. Marinette ignores her, asking Mr. Damocles if she can participate. Mr. Damocles mentions that the library is closing in five minutes, but Marinette persists, sitting on a chair in front of the screen.

Adrien gives her his controller, which she promptly puts up against her face before lowering it hastily. Kim doesn't believe that Marinette can beat Max, but Alya responds that she's motivated to beat Adrien's high score. Max tries to explain the rules of the game, but Marinette cuts him off, explaining the rest of the rules. They shake hands after a brief flashback to Marinette destroying her father in the game while at their house. Chloé and Sabrina stand on the second story of the library, watching and wondering how someone could spend so long looking at a screen. They then pick up their phones and scroll through social media.

Alya records the match. Marinette defeats Max and becomes the 1st place winner. Max becomes disappointed because it was his dream to play the competition and he lost his spot, but tries to be a good sport and congratulates Marinette before he walks off, needing to be alone. Mr. Damocles congratulates Adrien and Marinette on being the team to go up against the competing schools. Adrien says that he will come over to see her level after school. She is fazed by what he says and totally disregards Alya's warning.

Max, on the other hand, is angry over losing to Marinette. Hawk Moth senses this anger and sends an akuma out. The butterfly landing on his glasses, Hawk Moth greets Max as "The Gamer," promising to help Max win the tournament of his life so long as Max helps him in return. Max immediately agrees, transforming into The Gamer, surrounded by the walls of his real-life MX-01 mecha.

On their way home, Tikki asks Marinette why she wanted to participate in the tournament, pointing out that there are other ways to gain Adrien's attention and that her selfishness denied Max his spot in the tournament. Marinette cedes that she was wrong, but focuses on the fact that Adrien's coming over to her house. She then pauses and freaks out, realizing that Adrien will be in her room, her room full of pictures of him. She rushes home and realizes she has time before he gets there. Immediately as she says this, the doorbell downstairs has Marinette and Tikki rushing to get rid of the pictures.

Meanwhile, inside of his MX-01 the Gamer floats around the streets of Paris shooting at the pedestrians and cars. Each thing he shoots transforms into experience points.

At Marinette's house, Adrien stands at the foot of the stairs, speaking with Marinette's parents. He explains that he and Marinette are going to be participating in Ultimate Mecha Strike III tournament. Tom mentions that she trained with the best, but Sabine mentions that Marinette has never discussed an interest in the tournament. She then says that Marinette talks about Adrien quite often. Adrien is surprised by that tidbit but doesn't linger on it as Marinette steps out of her room to lead him upstairs. Both Tom and Sabine sigh contentedly as they watch them.

When Marinette and Adrien first get upstairs and sit down at Marinette's computer, they both end up reaching for the same controller and pulling back when their hands touched. It happens again making it awkward in the room. Adrien finally grabs one and Marinette the other. They start playing in silence for a while, occasionally taking short glances at each other.

Outside in the streets, The Gamer continues shooting pedestrians from inside his MX-01. Soon he gains enough experience points to transform the mecha from Level 1 to 2 and gains legs. The mecha now towers over the roads.

Back at Marinette’s place Marinette and Adrien are still playing the game. After just a few minutes of playing her dad brings croissants. Adrien, ready to eat one, can't get a word out when Marinette quickly shoos him away claiming they needed to practice for the competition.They continue playing as Marinette's parents both poke their heads up and she turns giving them a stern look turning around right when Adrien turns to see what's going on. A second Later her dad comes back offering cookies. Marinette shoos him away. They take a break and Adrien starts claiming she is way better than him.

Marinette tells him she has a secret. She shows him a bracelet, calling it her lucky charm, to his surprise. He takes it and just then her parents offer quiche Adrien tells Marinette it is okay to take a little break. They travel to the park. When they get there Marinette suggests they go back when done eating. Adrien says he'll try out the bracelet. Before they get a chance to leave the Gamer shows up and tries to come after her. Adrien knocks her out the way and they continue running. They are split by a bench and run their separate ways.

Adrien, knowing he is the one not being chased, goes and turns into Cat Noir to go rescue Marinette. He makes it right before she is hit and saves her. When he disappears she turns into Ladybug after being reminded by Tikki. She gets there just in time to stop him from shooting Cat Noir. They run him to the Parc des Princes. where Cat Noir uses Cataclysm to destroy the Gamer's robot and they are rewarded with an energy orb. But the Gamer reveals that he had "saved the game" after reaching Level 3 allowing him to simply reload to recreate his mecha.

Cat Noir and Ladybug obtain a robot from the energy orb they won and have a fight. With neither side winning, Ladybug uses her Lucky Charm and gets a spray paint can. She sprays Gamer's window with paint, causing him to peek outside. She snatches his glasses and breaks them. She catches the akuma, changing it back into an average butterfly, and she uses the Miraculous Ladybug to turn everything back to normal.

At the competition, Marinette decides to give her controller to Max, considering the fact that she only wanted in for the time with Adrien. Adrien then gives his controller to Marinette, explaining that she is much better than him. In the end card, it shows they win the game.

Major characters

 * Marinette Dupain-Cheng/Ladybug
 * Adrien Agreste/Cat Noir
 * Hawk Moth
 * Plagg
 * Tikki
 * Akuma
 * Max Kanté/Gamer

Minor characters

 * Juleka Couffaine (background)
 * Alix Kubdel (background)
 * Mylène Haprèle (background)
 * Alya Césaire
 * Caline Bustier
 * Mr. Damocles
 * Rose Lavillant
 * Lê Chiến Kim
 * Nino Lahiffe
 * Nathaniel Kurtzberg (background)
 * Ivan Bruel (background)
 * Jean Duparc (background)
 * Tom Dupain
 * Chloé Bourgeois
 * Sabrina Raincomprix
 * Sabine Cheng
 * Master Fu (background)
 * Civilians

Trivia

 * Internationally, this episode first premiered in France.
 * This episode was the fifteenth to air in France.
 * This entire episode is a reference to the production staff's favorite robot shows. Shows and other references are as follows:
 * Street Fighter
 * Star Wars, with game character R2D3 resembling R2D2
 * Gurren Lagann
 * Pacific Rim
 * Futurama, with game character WI2NY resembling Bender.
 * The Iron Giant, with game character IRON resembling the titular character.
 * UFO Robot Grendizer, airing in France as Goldorak, with the game character UFO.GR resembling Grendizer.
 * Marinette's diary box from "Darkblade" reappears in this episode.
 * The shot of her writing in her diary from Miraculous Secrets also appears.
 * However, Tikki is added to that scene.
 * Master Fu makes an appearance--as a cameo--standing in the background behind Marinette and Adrien while they're eating pie in the park.
 * Morade Rahni did the storyboards for this episode. The storyboards can be viewed here: Part 1, Part 2.
 * This episode reveals that Marinette is good at video games and played them with her father.
 * Towards the end of the storyboard, when Adrien gives up his place in the tournament to Marinette, he tries to give her bracelet back to her, but she's dragged away by Nino before she's able to grab it. Adrien is seen pocketing the lucky charm.
 * In an advertisement for the Video Games Competition, it is revealed that this episode takes place between the 18th and the 21st of May.
 * The dates May 5th and May 18th are respectively visible in "Copycat" and "Mr. Pigeon"; thus, assuming it is the same year, these three episodes are set around the same month.
 * The move that Cat Noir shouts—"Catouken"—is a portmanteau of "cat" with "Hadouken", the signature move of Ryu in the Street Fighter series of video games.
 * In French, the word is "Matouken" with "Matou" meaning "tomcat".
 * One of the attacks is also called the "Tatsukitty" by Ladybug, referencing the Tatsumaki Senpukyaku from the same series.
 * Zangief's Spinning Piledriver also makes an appearance in the fight scene at the Parc de Princes.
 * In the French version of this episode, Thomas Astruc makes a cameo as the voice of the start menu of Ultimate Mecha Strike III. This is his only cameo in season 1.
 * When Cat Noir says, "Do a barrel roll," it was a reference to Peppy Hare from the video game Star Fox.

Errors

 * In the flashback to Marinette and Tom playing the game, R2D3's color scheme is changed from black and pink to black and purple.
 * When Marinette and Max are having their match in the game, Max's character name is wrong. It should be MX-01, but instead, it's 2TO.
 * In the scene when Tom offers the croissants, Marinette's pictures of Adrien are still on her wall. When Adrien looks around during the scene with the cookies, though, the pictures are gone again.
 * When the Ladybug and Cat Miraculouses are displayed on the Gamer's screen, the ring is in its de-transformed from (silver) instead of being black with a green pawprint.
 * Ladybug's eyes are miscolored as gray during the battle against Gamer instead of them being blue.

Der Gamer Jugador Геймер Gracz Le Gamer pt-br:Jogador