9 Kings: How to Beat the Tenth King Encounter

To defeat the Tenth King encounter in 9 Kings, you must compress your deck down to an elite core of 8–12 cards, anchor your frontline with heavily shielded tanks, and scale rapid backline damage before enemy stat growth overwhelms your board. Standard mid-game hybrid armies and broad unit swarms collapse against the Tenth King's exponential health scaling and heavy area-of-effect sweeps.

Ninth King Campaign vs. Tenth King Demands

The transition from the standard nine-year campaign to the Tenth King encounter requires shifting away from casual unit drafting toward strict stat amplification and deck efficiency.

Encounter Factor	Standard Ninth King Campaign	Tenth King Endgame Encounter
Enemy Health Pool	Moderate to high boss scaling	Exponential, multi-layered boss health
Frontline Demand	Mixed infantry or single-tank absorption	Fortified Iron Soldiers, Paladins, or Stone tanks
DPS Archetype	Broad ranged damage or swarm pressure	Concentrated carries with rapid attack multipliers
Optimal Deck Size	15–20 cards with utility options	8–12 hyper-refined, synergistic core cards

Un-upgraded low-tier units act as liabilities in this fight. Enemy boss waves deploy sweeping cleaves that wipe out light infantry before they can attack, which feeds enemy offensive momentum while contributing negligible damage to heavily armored opposing tanks.

Frontline Anchors and Damage Mitigation

Raw unit count cannot hold the front row against the Tenth King. You must concentrate your upgrades on dedicated defensive anchors rather than distributing resources across basic foot soldiers.

Anchor with Top-Tier Tanks: Field upgraded Iron Soldiers, high-tier Stone defenders, or Paladins. Merge duplicate copies early to maximize individual unit durability.
Stack Defensive Perks: Prioritize perks and relics that grant barrier shields or bonus armor on hit.
Leverage Protective Auras: Formations centered on Paladins generate damage-mitigation auras that shield nearby allies against heavy boss cleaves.
Avoid Pure Stalls: Do not overfill the board with zero-damage tanks. If your frontline survives without adequate offensive backup, the boss will eventually scale past your damage mitigation and wipe the board.

Scaling Backline Damage and Execution

Flat numerical damage bonuses fall off against the Tenth King's massive health bars. Your offensive engine needs multiplicative attack speed, uninterrupted spell channels, and execution mechanics to clear waves efficiently.

Accelerate Ranged Attack Cadence: Pair Ballistas and high-tier artillery with attack-speed perks and percent-based damage shredding to rapidly melt boss armor.
Protect High-Yield Casters: Position Wizards and Spire-boosted units directly behind your heaviest armor lines so their channel durations complete without interruption.
Deploy Executioners: Bring Executioners to finish off wounded enemy tanks instantly, bypassing opposing regeneration mechanics and late-trigger shields.
Balance Single-Target and Wave Clear: Maintain enough area burst to prevent supporting enemy minions from crowding your tanks while keeping dedicated high-frequency damage focused on the boss.

Deck Thinning and Board Positioning

A bloated deck dilutes your draw consistency, preventing critical upgrades from appearing when needed.

Glassing and Draft Discipline

Use Glassing opportunities and card-removal options to purge starter cards like un-upgraded Peasants and low-impact utility spells. Stop spending gold on mediocre draft units simply because they are available. Instead, bank your gold to afford shop refreshes, high-tier perk purchases, and targeted upgrades that strengthen your 8–12 core cards.

Grid Positioning

Do not pack your army into a single cluster where area attacks can hit every unit simultaneously.

Front-Center: Place your primary tanks here to absorb the opening boss charge and fix enemy aggro.
Staggered Second Line: Position secondary bruisers just behind the main line to intercept flanking enemies.
Opposite Rear Corners: Split your primary ranged carries between the far back corners. This creates overlapping firing arcs and guarantees that if one flank is pressured, the other side continues firing uninterrupted.
Rear Center: Place aura buffers and utility support structures directly behind the main defensive line so their buffs reach both the frontline wall and the backline snipers safely.