News & updates
View all- New tool9 Kings: a Run Planner to plan a run or show off one you hadOct 18, 2026The new 9 Kings Run Planner lets you set out what a run should look for, lay out your kingdom plot by plot, write up how it went in your own words and share it as a link or an image.
- New guide9 Kings: a beginner's guide, a gold and Vaults guide, and five builds updatedOct 18, 2026Two new 9 Kings guides, first runs and gold, plus corrections from the game's code: the Hourglass's own speed cap, what really feeds the Ghost Pagoda, and two perk numbers that showed as 0%.
- Guide9 Kings Beginner's Guide: First Runs, Plots, Gold and the Rules Cards Leave OutOct 18, 2026How a run is laid out, how to get more room when the plots fill up, what gold is for, why to finish every run, and the rules the card text does not spell out.
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About the game
9 Kings in brief
What 9 Kings is
9 Kings is a roguelike kingdom builder from Sad Socket, published by Hooded Horse. You pick one of nine kings, each with a deck of its own, and play cards onto the plots of a small kingdom: troops, towers, buildings, spells and tomes. Every year ends in a battle against another king's army, and a run is won by surviving year 33. After that the game keeps going for as long as your kingdom does.
Playing the same card on a plot again levels it up, and most buildings buff only the plots they touch. Where a card sits matters as much as which card it is.
What decides a run
There is no tier list here, on purpose. A run is decided by the cards you draw and the engine you build from them, and any king can run away with a year once two or three cards start feeding each other. What players look up is the engine: which cards it needs, what feeds it, when to commit and what kills it.
The calendar is fixed, and good runs are planned around it. A blessing arrives in year 3, decrees are picked in years 5, 13, 21 and 29, merchants visit in years 7, 19 and 31, and a Rainbow army attacks in years 17 and 27. Enemy strength climbs every single year, and the first six are softened, so year 7 is where an unfinished plan gets found out.
Where to start
New to the game? Read the Builds page first: 25 builds across all nine kings, card by card, with the year to commit and what beats each one. Each king's page lists its deck, its unlock condition, its perks and decrees and how its army grows when it is the one attacking you. The card list covers all 140 cards with stats per level, and Perks & Decrees is a finder for every passive and every pick the Royal Council can offer. Numbers on these pages are read from the game's own files for the current version.
Everything for 9 Kings