9 Kings: How to Build and Scale a Goat Swarm Deck

To run a successful Goat build in 9 Kings, draft duplicate Goat cards during early rounds, remove unaligned cards to preserve draw consistency, and place your units in clear lanes to maximize charge impact. Combining duplicates into higher star tiers increases their health, base damage, and charge power, allowing low-cost swarms to overwhelm enemy frontlines and defeat opposing monarchs.

Early Drafting and Deck-Thinning Priorities

During the first three years of a campaign, dedicate your draft picks and shop gold to drafting Goat duplicates, beast-tag upgrades, and economy cards that fund rerolls. Avoid diluting your card pool with expensive mercenaries or unrelated spells, which reduce your chances of drawing the duplicates required to star up your core units.

Aggressively cull cards as deck-thinning opportunities appear. Remove basic starting militia, heavy slow infantry, and static barricades that do not contribute to fast offensive momentum.

Battlefield Deployment and Lane Alignment

Goats rely on high sprint speed and initial charge collision to disrupt enemy formations. Because enemy auto-battle AI targets the nearest available unit, massed Goats force frontliners to waste heavy single-target strikes on inexpensive targets.

To deploy the swarm effectively:

1. Clear charging lanes: Inspect the enemy layout before placing units. Avoid stationing Goats behind barricades or slow friendly units, which cause bottlenecks and leave your herd vulnerable to area-of-effect damage.
2. Target high-priority backlines: Align running corridors directly toward enemy archers, casters, or siege engines so charging units bypass frontliners and disrupt ranged damage dealers before they finish attack animations.
3. Stagger deployment into two waves: Deploy an initial forward wave to absorb opening artillery volleys and draw initial targeting, followed immediately by a second wave to flank the remaining forces.

Perk Synergies and Stat Scaling

Select perks that grant movement acceleration, flat damage increases, attack speed, and beast-specific combat buffs. Because Goats attack rapidly in large numbers, flat damage bonuses and attack speed multipliers yield greater total output across a swarm than on single high-tier champions.

In addition, prioritize sustain perks that trigger on unit collision or death. Perks granting death-triggered explosions or stacking team buffs ensure that even when front-line chargers fall, each loss generates offensive value and maintains wave pressure.

Late-Game Upgrades and the Ninth King

During Years 7 and 8, shift your focus from expanding board width to vertical star upgrades. End-game encounters feature fortified garrisons and high-damage area bombardments that quickly eliminate tier-one units. Merging high-tier Goats provides the required health pool to survive boss burst damage.

When fighting the Ninth King, divide your upgraded Goats into two distinct strike teams:

• Primary suppression team: Direct one group straight at the main boss to stagger its targeting cycle with continuous charge hits.
• Flanking team: Route the second group around the perimeter to clear auxiliary spawners and support beacons before joining the central fight.