Clash Royale Hero Duplicates Changes: How the New System Works

The Clash Royale 2025 December Update introduced Heroes, a brand-new rarity for the game. This is the highest rarity above Champions and has abilities that can change a match in a big way. Heroes will greatly change players' decks, how players progress through the game, and how players compete with each other.
Supercell has also restructured the way in which players obtain copies of their Heroes (Hero Duplicate). This change has caused excitement and controversy in the Clash Royale community.
In this article, you will learn about the changes to the Hero Duplicate system, how it worked before December 2025, what has changed, and why it is important for players' progression.

How Heroes and Fragments Work

Now, Clash Royale Heroes can be unlocked using Hero Fragments, the new currency that is obtained from Hero Boxes, Pass Royale rewards, and limited-time events. When a player gathers 200 Hero Fragments, the game will randomly spawn a Hero for the player.

Although this feature is to make the progression interesting, it led to worries at the beginning when the players started getting Heroes they already had.

Original Duplicate System: Why Players Were Unhappy

At the start of the game, if a player called upon a Hero that they had already acquired, the copy was turned into 60 Hero Fragments together with some Hero cards specific to the Hero and extra resources that depended on the Arena level. This arrangement seemed reasonable in theory.

However, most players thought the system was not very good in practice. The Hero Fragments are hard to get, and getting just a small part of the 200 required for another unlock made duplicates feel like a punishment rather than a reward.

The players who do not spend money on the game often find it hard to take a duplicate since it would mean that their progress was partly lost, thus slowing down the collection of Heroes and decreasing the excitement around Hero Boxes. Community feedback across forums and social media was clear: duplicates didn’t feel valuable enough.

Clash Royale Hero Duplicates Changes (December 2025 Update)

Supercell made some changes with the intention of lowering the level of annoyance and at the same time, increasing fairness. The changes concerning the Clash Royale Hero Duplicates affected partly the authorship of the duplicates and the compensations that were made better.

Duplicate Protection Before Completion

Now, when you gather 200 Hero Fragments, the system gives priority to open the Hero which you have not already. Thus, the number of duplicates is cut down with no need, and it guarantees that the investment in fragments will finally be rewarding with actual progress.

Duplicate Rewards After Owning All Heroes

Once a player has unlocked all available Heroes, duplicates can still appear. Instead of feeling useless, they now grant:

• Hero card copies
• 20 Hero Fragments as compensation
• While the fragment amount is lower than before, this only applies after a player has completed their Hero collection, so duplicates feel more like bonus progress rather than a penalty.

Competitive Mode Adjustment

Besides the Clash Royale Hero Duplicates modifications, Supercell also limit the number of Heroes to one in the following modes, which resulted in a more balanced competitive situation:

• Classic 1v1
• Classic 2v2
• Classic Challenge
• Grand Challenge

This ensures that Heroes will make a significant difference, yet not too much, without overshadowing the overall strategy and not tipping the games too heavily in favour of abilities.

The newly established duplicate system is the solution for one of the main early problems of the Hero period, which was stalling progress. The new rules that stop duplications until all Heroes are opened up and then keep the compensations proportionate to the number of Heroes opened up, players will now enjoy continuous progress instead of frequent delays.

This is even more so for free-to-play players, who rely on Hero Boxes and seasonal rewards rather than premium Pass benefits. While some players do still believe that fragment rates could be better, the majority of them agree with the opinion that the Clash Royale Hero Duplicates changes are a step forward.
Heroes are still new, and Supercell has shown willingness to adjust based on feedback. These changes reflect a system that is still evolving, much like players often ask about the Clash Royale Open Chest Event when new mechanics are introduced across Supercell games.

As Clash Royale moves into 2026, more tuning around Hero rewards and fragments is likely, but for now, this update shows that player feedback is influencing the future of the game.