[Pokémon Shuffle] Shape Boost Storage in Timed Stages [PATCHED]

So basically there are four abilities in this game that we call "Shape Boost" abilities. These abilities are Cross Attack, L-Boost, T-Boost, and Cross-Attack+. What these abilities do is that when a match with a Pokémon with the ability in question is part of a match that makes the appropriate shape, the ability will activate and the two matches will be increased by the multiplier the ability in question has. Note that if the ability in question has its skill level boosted, only the first match will have the increased multiplier and the second match will be boosted by the base multiplier. One thing to note is that if you make the shape match and also match another Pokémon elsewhere on the board, that Pokémon match can potentially get the boost of the ability as the second match depending on where the shape match happens relative to the other match on the board.

As far as the abilities are concerned, the ability will activate with the specific matches (and their rotations):

Cross Attack, Cross Attack+
X O X | X O X | X O X X | X O X | X O X X | X X O X X
O O O | O O O | O O O O | X O X | X O X X | X X O X X
X O X | X O X | X O X X | O O O | O O O O | O O O O O
      | X O X | X O X X | X O X | X O X X | X X O X X
                        | X O X | X O X X | X X O X X

T-Boost
O O O | O O O O | O O O O O
X O X | X O X X | X X O X X
X O X | X O X X | X X O X X

L-Boost
O X X | O X X X | O X X
O X X | O X X X | O X X
O O O | O Y Y Y | O X X
                | Y Y Y

These are how the abilities work normally. And yes, it is possible to activate L-Boost with two different Pokémon if the two matches form an L-shape.

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In timed stages, you are able to grab and move icons whenever and wherever you want while the timer is still running. One thing in particular that is interesting is the concept of grabbing an icon and holding onto it. When you make a match and grab an icon that were to fall, you can stop icons from falling in the column in question and allowing other icons in other columns to drop normally. When you are holding onto an icon and the icons stop falling and no match is detected, the combo ends. This can be useful as it can allow you to for example, stop a match of five from occurring as part of a combo so you can then let go to make the skyfall result in a combo starting with a match of five which can result in abilities such as Unity Power and Shot Out.

Another practical use of grabbing and holding onto an icon is that while you holding onto an icon, the icon cannot be used as part of a match and cannot be erased. This can be useful in that you can grab and hold onto an icon before that icon gets used as part of a match, stopping the match from happening. This is called Match Cancelling. From there, you can either let go of the icon and either continue an existing combo or start a new one (for the purposes of activating a burst ability) or moving the icon elsewhere to either create a match elsewhere or make no matches occur.

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So what do shape boost abilities have to do with holding onto an icon and Match Cancelling? To put it simply, by combining these two things together, you can make some rather unintended outcomes result. More specifically: When you activate a shape boost ability and immediately after dropping the icon to create the match and trigger the ability, you can grab the icon again (i.e. Match Cancelling the second match). What this does is prevent the second match from happening* and depending on what you do, you can either: Let it go immediately and continue the combo or start a new combo, or move it elswhere and either start a new combo (or continue a combo) elsewhere, or stop matches from happening and make no combo happen.

*: You cannot cancel the second match of a Shape Boost ability if you drop the icon into a blank space; it has to have a Pokémon in it.

What Match Cancelling the second match of a combo starting with a shape boost (and not letting further combos amount) is set a specific flag. This flag when active boosts the first two matches of a combo and is disabled after the second match of a combo occurs. This is very important as you can combine it by opening a new combo and that match will deal much more damage than intended (especially if a burst ability activates). More specifially, the formula to determine this is:

FORMULA
DMG = NDMG × SB × SLX/SL1

Let:
NDMG = The Damage the match was supposed to make (EG: A Match of 5 SL5 Unity Power trigger from Goodra deals 100 (AP) × 2 (Mo5) × 12 (SL5 UP) = 2,400 neutrally).
SB = The multiplier of the Shape Boost at SL1. If the skill was Cross Attack+, this is 4. Otherwise, this is 3.
SLX/SL1 = The DMG Multiplier of the Pokémon's ability at its current skill level divided by the DMG Multiplier of the Pokémon's ability at SL1 (EG: SL5 Unity Power deals 12× DMG while SL1 Unity Power deals 5× DMG. Therefore, SLX/SL1 = 12 ÷ 5 = 2.4).

Examples of this:

-I have a Lv1 Alola Cap Pikachu with its Shot Out skill at SL1. I trigger a Match of Five where its ability activates after Match Cancelling following a Cross Attack activation. Shot Out deals 2× DMG at SL1. How much damage will it deal (neutrally)?

DMG = NDMG × SB × SLX/SL1

NDMG = 60 (AP) × 2 (Mo5) × 2 (Shot Out) = 240 DMG.
SB = Because this was off a Cross Attack and not a Cross Attack+, this is 3.
SLX/SL1 = 2 ÷ 2 = 1.

Therefore: DMG = 240 × 3 × 1 = 720.

-Now what happens if that Alola Cap Pikachu's Shot Out skill were SL5 instead of SL1? One thing to note is that Shot Out deals 8× DMG at SL5.

DMG = NDMG × SB × SLX/SL1

NDMG = 60 (AP) × 2 (Mo5) × 8 (Shot Out) = 960 DMG.
SB = Because this was off a Cross Attack and not a Cross Attack+, this is 3.
SLX/SL1 = 8 ÷ 2 = 4.

Therefore: DMG = 960 × 3 × 4 = 11,520 DMG.

-As you can see, with SL5 Shot Out as opposed to SL1 Shot Out, Alola Cap Pikachu when the Shape Boost flag is set, deals far more damage than it would have with SL1 Shot Out.

-Now for a different example. Let's say I Match Cancelled the second match of a Cross Attack+ activation. I then do a match of five of Goodra. This Goodra is Level 10 and has SL5 Unity Power. Now let's say I get bad RNG and don't get the Unity Power activation. Note that Unity Power deals 12× DMG at SL5 and 5× DMG at SL1. How much damage does Goodra deal (Neutrally)?

DMG = NDMG × SB × SLX/SL1

NDMG = 100 (AP) × 2 (Mo5) = 200 DMG.
SB = Because this was off a Cross Attack+, this is 4.
SLX/SL1 = 12 ÷ 5 = 2.4.

Therefore: DMG = 200 × 4 × 2.4 = 1,920 DMG.

-Had Unity Power activated, it would have dealt 2400 × 4 × 2.4 = 23,040 DMG.

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So now, what happens if I Match Cancel a shape boost ability, and then proceed to Match Cancel another? This is where things get really weird.

So for example, if I go to trigger a Cross Attack and cancel the second match, then go to trigger a T-Boost and then cancel the second match, what happens if I then go to activate Shot Out at SL1 on a match of five Alola Cap Pikachu? The answer to this is that you end up dealing much more damage than what was listed above, more specifically, 2,160 DMG. From this, you could probably discern that the multipliers from Cross Attack and T-Boost stacked. This is correct.

Introducing the concept of Chaining. So when you cancel the second match of a shape boost ability, you set the flag that boosts the DMG of the first two matches of a combo and that won't go away until you get a combo of two or more. You also store the base damage multiplier from that shape boost. When you then use this to activate another shape boost ability and then cancel the second match of that ability, the first match of that shape ability activation will deal more damage and now the multiplier of that shape ability is stored alongside the multiplier of the shape ability you had activated before. This means your SB from earlier will now have the two multipliers multiplied together (so for example, if you stored a Cross Attack and T-Boost, your SB will now be (3 × 3) = 9). In essence, you have "chained" the two boosts together.

The other thing to note when the two boosts were chained is not only did the damage multipliers from those two abilities stacked, the SLX/SL1 multiplier for any Pokémon you match with more than one shape boost multiplier stored will also have been raised, more specifically, it would be multiplied by itself.

Now the other thing to wonder is if I can chain more than two shape multipliers together? The answer is yes, but there is a cap to how many shape multipliers you can chain together, more specifically, a chain of four. Once you reach a chain of four*, if you try to activate any ability, the ability will not activate though the multipliers you have stored together will be maintained as long as the combo count does not hit two or greater.

*: This is probably because it seems to be programmed that only four abilities can be activated at one time and each of the abilities have been taken up by each shape boost ability you have stored.

So to give the full formula of this whole thing is:

FORMULA
DMG = NDMG × 3^x × 4^y × SLX/SL1^z

NDMG = The Damage the match was supposed to make (EG: A Match of 5 SL5 Unity Power trigger from Goodra deals 100 (AP) × 2 (Mo5) × 12 (SL5 UP) = 2,400 neutrally).
SLX/SL1 = The DMG Multiplier of the Pokémon's ability at its current skill level divided by the DMG Multiplier of the Pokémon's ability at SL1 (EG: SL5 Unity Power deals 12× DMG while SL1 Unity Power deals 5× DMG. Therefore, SLX/SL1 = 12 ÷ 5 = 2.4).
x = The number of times a T-Boost, L-Boost, or Cross Attack multiplier has been stored in the chain.
y = The number of times a Cross Attack+ multiplier has been stored in the chain.
z = The total number of shape boost multipliers that have been stored in the chain.
*Note that x + y == z and z will never get any higher than 4.

So to give the example of how this formula works for the chaining purposes, let's take the SL5 Shot Out Lv1 Alola Cap Pikachu from earlier. For each, we will assume a match of five and each time the ability activates. Let's assume neutral damage like always.

On a Chain of 0:
DMG = (60 × 2 × 8) × 3^0 × 4^0 × 4^0
	= 960 × 1 × 1 × 1
	= 960.

Now let's say I store a Cross Attack Boost before activating the match of five Shot Out.

DMG = (60 × 2 × 8) × 3^1 × 4^0 × 4^1
	= 960 × 3 × 1 × 4
	= 11,520.

Now I then manage to store a Cross Attack+ boost before activating the match of five Shot Out.

DMG = (60 × 2 × 8) × 3^1 × 4^1 × 4^2
	= 960 × 3 × 4 × 16
	= 184,320.

Now I store a T-Boost boost before activating the match of five Shot Out.

DMG = (60 × 2 × 8) × 3^2 × 4^1 × 4^3
	= 960 × 9 × 4 × 64
	= 2,211,840.

Now I store another Cross Attack+ boost before going for a match of five Shot Out. However, because there is a chain of four, Shot Out will not activate, even though it's a match of five (where Shot Out has a 100% activation chance) and there are non-supports on the board.

DMG = (60 × 2) × 3^2 × 4^2 × 4^4
	= 120 × 9 × 16 × 256
	= 4,423,680.

As you can see, by chaining a few shape boosts together, you can get insanely high scores fairly quickly, bordering on overkill on anything after two or three boosts stored. Note that these benefits will remain while you don't make a combo of two or greater, so accidental matches are fine as long as they do not turn into combos.

One thing to note is with a chain of three or higher and the right ability used and conditions are suitable, you can create a match that can deal over 10 million damage. However, there is a score cap in Pokémon Shuffle of 9,999,999, which essentially means that the damage cap in this game is 9,999,999.

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SUMMARY

By activating a shape ability and cancelling the second match by grabbing and holding an icon immediately after dropping it down to make a match and then killing the combo, you set a flag (that expires after the second match of a combo occurs) to boost the damage of the first two matches of any combo. This can then be used to make matches deal larger damage than intended. These shape boost damage multipliers can be stacked together (up to a chain of four) to make matches deal far more damage than intended, allowing you to get insane scores.

The practical application of this exploit is that you can pretty much with enough organisation and disruption co-operation, beat basically any timed stage itemless due to all the multipliers being stacked together to allow you to deal extreme damage.

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CREDITS
n1njas: Discovered you can cancel the second match of a shape boost by grabbing the icon used to make the match immediately after dropping it.
Sergiomh: Discovered the effects of cancelling the second match of the shape boost, storing the flag to deal much more damage than expected.
viol3tic: Discovered that you can chain the shape boost multipliers together.
Kevyaga13: Discovered the SLX/SL1 part of the damage formula when the shape boost multipliers are stored.
skipzz: The first user to hit the score cap of 9,999,999 with this method.
Various others that I probably missed that I'll add if appropriate.