What is Hero form in Clash Royale?
Hero form is a separate Clash Royale card form from Evolution. Why battle-log fields mix them up, and how DeckBeacon labels each one.
Hero form is a special version of certain Clash Royale cards, distinct from Evolution. In the official battle log the same numeric fields are used for both, which is why tools that treat evolutionLevel > 0 as "this card is Evolved" will mislabel Heroes.
DeckBeacon did that once. It was the root cause of a "Special" badge that meant nothing a player could act on. The catalog now keeps heroCardIds separate from evolutionCardIds, and an ambiguousFormCardIds list when the log does not settle the question.
Why the API makes this easy to get wrong
evolutionLevel and maxEvolutionLevel look like upgrade levels. In practice they behave as a bitmask of forms: bit 1 Evolution, bit 2 Hero, 3 both. Champions carry no bit and must be slotted by a separate rule. Reading the fields as a counter will conflate two cosmetics (and two gameplay rules) into one.
This is not RoyaleAPI trivia and not a DeckBeacon-only quirk. It is how the official payload is shaped. The copy-deck URL ignores both forms entirely — copy guide — so a Hero still has to be set in the collection after you import the eight base cards.
How it shows up on this site
- A Hero in the sample is badged as Hero, not as Evolution
- Filters that count Evolutions do not silently include Heroes
- If the form cannot be decoded, the card is marked ambiguous rather than guessed
Guessing would make a prettier grid and a lying copy disclosure. The disclosure has to name the cards you will actually touch in-game.
Hero vs Champion vs Evolution
- Evolution — cycle a card to play its Evolved version
- Hero form — a different special form on a subset of cards
- Champion — a card type with its own slot rules; what a Champion is
They can coincide on one list. The ranked identity includes which forms were actually played, so two "same eight names" lists can still be different decks.