Summary
- King of Nothing in 9 Kings is well-balanced, with Castle as a crucial card for strategic placement and powerful attacks.
- Soldier is versatile, transforming into a berserker or a knight with buffs, while Paladin shines when paired with damage troops.
- Archer, effective with a tank in front, Scout Tower for high single-target damage, and support buildings like Farm and Blacksmith for troop scalability.
Players can choose from one of a few different Kings to play as in 9 Kings, a game all about synergistic builds, strategic thinking, and land management. Each King has their own unique playstyle, expressed through a set of nine cards unique to that King, as well as some perks and royal decrees.
The first king, and the most well-balanced one, is the King of Nothing. His playstyle is simple to learn, easy to master, and effective in practice. The cards of the King of Nothing complement each other quite well, and each one can be the center of a build, though with some heavy caveats.
9 Castle
Power Base of Nothing
- Starting Tower
- Hurls a stone projectile at your enemies
Simple yet effective, the Castle is the card that all King of Nothing players must have on their board. It should be placed on the back row to prevent enemies from reaching it too easily, but that’s not to say it’s not a powerful card.
In the right build, the Castle can be a devastating force that strikes down enemies with abandon. It has an AoE attack with decent damage. When the attack speed is buffed, players can expect to chew through enemy armies like they’re made of cardboard.
8 Soldier
Overall Okay Option
- Troop
- Well-balanced melee troop
A quintessential troop, there’s nothing that makes the Soldier stand out from the crowd in any way, shape, or form. It is quite effective in the early game, but must continue to be buffed to remain viable as the run progresses.
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The Soldier is a clean slate that can be transformed however the player wants. With the right buffs, the soldier can change into a heavy-hitting berserker or a stalwart knight that takes hits without feeling anything.
7 Paladin
Decent Tank With The Right Buffs
- Troop
- Highly defensive melee troop
The Paladin is a defensive card that has a very small number of units. However, there are plenty of cards and buildings that increase the number of units, so that’s not an issue most of the time. The high health stat of the Paladin is its greatest strength, but it has an abysmally low damage stat, making it quite useless on its own.
It truly shines and shows its worth when it is combined with damage-dealing troops like the archer and the soldier. It’s particularly good with buildings like the Spire or the Treant, which heal player troops in battle.
6 Archer
Strong With A Tank
- Troop
- Deals weak but fast ranged damage.
The Archer is a troop with a high number of units. It deals a decent amount of damage overall and is a powerful ranged option with the right buffs. It doesn’t do well on its own, but is quite useful when there is a tank in front of it.
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Though it might seem a bit drab and uninspired, the Archer is no worse than any of the other ranged units in the game. What it lacks in ingenuity, it makes up for in usefulness and simple effectiveness.
5 Scout Tower
Single Target, High Damage Tower
- Tower
- Shoots powerful single-target arrows
Other than the castle, the Scout Tower is the only damage-dealing tower available to the King of Nothing. Instead of dealing AoE damage, the Scout Tower does fast-paced single-target shooting to get rid of high-health enemies.
Unlike the Castle, players cannot direct the enemy that the Scout Tower shoots at, making it a bit less useful. It has a fairly high attack speed and good damage, making it a decent pick in most situations.
4 Farm
More Units, More Damage
- Support Building
- Every year, adds +1 unit to one adjacent troop.
The Farm is one of the most powerful support buildings in the game when paired with the right troops for its adjacency bonus. It gives one additional troop per level to one adjacent troop, increasing the count of the troop, no matter which troop it is.
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When paired with high volume units like the Archer and the Soldier, it isn’t that great, but when paired with troops like the Paladin, the Ballista, and the Warlock, etc, it is extremely useful.
3 Blacksmith
Scalability for Troops
- Support Building
- Every year, adds +2% attack damage to adjacent troops and constructions
The Blacksmith is a support building that increases the attack damage of all adjacent troops and towers. It’s important to note that diagonal plots aren’t adjacent; only the plots that share a boundary are considered adjacent.
The Blacksmith is a great way for the player to scale their troops for the higher difficulty of the late game. Since it gives a percentage increase, players can expect ever-increasing damage outputs from their troops that are buffed by it. Players can surround a single troop with multiple Blacksmith buildings, increase their level as much as possible, and see the numbers go all the way to the moon.
2 Steel Coat
Temporary Invincibility
- Buff Card
- Cancels the first hit the target unit would take every battle.
The only buff card belonging to the King of Nothing, the Steel Coat, has an unassumingly powerful effect. It makes a unit invincible for one hit. This means that all the members of the unit cannot be hurt by the first hit during a battle.
It is best suited to tanks, though if the player is having trouble with enemies in their back line (Thief), they should apply it to their ranged attackers. It is particularly effective against the King of Stone as he uses Ballistas, a high-damage troop that shoots once every 12.5 seconds.
1 Wildcard
Upgrade Everything
- Buff Card
- Levels up target plot.
Getting the right card to level up existing plots is quite unlikely. Players can only get the cards of the King that they fight against, and each king has nine different cards to choose from, making it difficult to get the card that the player wants.
However, there are a handful of cards in the game that can level up a plot regardless of what card inhabits it. Wildcard straight up levels a plot without any caveats, making it one of the best cards in the game. It doesn’t matter what build players are creating, a Wildcard never goes amiss.
OpenCritic Reviews
- Released
- May 23, 2025
- Developer(s)
- Sad Socket
- Publisher(s)
- Hooded Horse, INSTINCT3
- Engine
- Unity
WHERE TO PLAY
- Genre(s)
- Roguelike, Deckbuilding, Strategy
- Platform(s)
- PC
