This page is about the gameplay mechanic. For the physical card game, see Shadowverse: Evolve.
Evolve or Evolution is primary mechanic featured across all iterations of Shadowverse.
Shadowverse[]
A sample of some followers in their unevolved (left) and evolved (right) forms.
In Shadowverse, all follower cards are capable of evolving. Evolved followers may have increased attack and/or defense, different or additional keyword abilities from their unevolved forms, or abilities that activate upon evolution or that are only active while the follower is evolved.
Followers can be evolved once per turn through the use of Evolution Points or any number of times with card effects. The player going first can evolve followers starting from their 5th turn and receive 2 Evolution Points at the start of that turn. The player going second can evolve followers starting from their 4th turn and receive 3 Evolution Points at the start of that turn. A player has 0 Evolution Points on turns before they can evolve.
If a follower evolves the same turn it comes into play, it may attack enemy followers (but not the enemy leader until the following turn) as though it had the Rush keyword.
It is possible for some followers to evolve automatically before a player's 4th or 5th turn if certain conditions of a card's ability are met.
Super Evolution[]
Super Evolution is a mechanic introduced in Shadowverse: Worlds Beyond.
Super Evolution will be available at the start of the second player's 6th turn. Up to 2 remaining EP (evolution points) will be turned into SEP (super evolution points) that players can use to super-evolve a follower. To compensate, the number of EP a player will have is also increasing. The first player will have 3 EP, and the second player will have 4 EP.
All Super Evolved followers will have the following:
- +3/+3
- Rush (replacing the rush-like ruling in the previous version of Shadowverse)
- When destroying an opposing Follower in battle, the destroyed follower will be sent crashing into the opposing leader, dealing 1 damage.
- Super Evolve Abilities, which trigger when the follower in question super-evolves. If you super-evolve a follower that has both an evolve ability and a super-evolve ability, both abilities will activate simultaneously.
Shadowverse: Evolve[]
In the Shadowverse: Evolve physical card game, the only followers that can evolve are those who have a corresponding evolved card. Not all followers have an evolved version. The evolved cards are put in the Evolve Deck with a maximum of 10 cards.
All players may Evolve their cards from the first turn of the game by paying the cost displayed in the evolvable follower along the 
symbol. Evolving cards costs play points, although 1 Evolution Point card can be used to substitute 1 play point of the cost to evolve once per turn. The player going 2nd receives 3 Evolution Point cards at the start of the game. The player going 1st receives no Evolution Point cards.
If an evolved follower is destroyed or banished, the evolved follower card is returned to the Evolve Deck face-up, while the unevolved follower goes to the Cemetery or Banished area.
Advanced followers are a special type of evolution that represents variants of the original follower, with altered name and abilities. Although they are put into the Evolve Deck, they are not played by the evolution mechanic but instead using an effect, usually from an associated spell card.