9 Kings: Joker King IX IX Rat Deck Guide

To clear King IX IX difficulty in 9 Kings using the Joker monarch, build a continuous rodent swarm engine powered by automated spawner structures, aura commanders, and stacking poison damage. Joker removes faction drafting restrictions, allowing you to bypass bloated enemy health pools by pairing expendable frontline vermin with cross-faction debuffs and conversion spells.

Card Priority for the Rat Engine

Drafting passive structures and commander units takes priority over adding raw unit cards to your deck. Manual unit deployments quickly deplete energy and card draw, whereas spawner structures provide an uninterrupted stream of reinforcements.

Secure at least two Rat Warrens early in the run. Once steady generation is established, draft Rat King commanders to scale local damage output, then target poison perks and Ratification to counter late-game stat scaling.

Grid Positioning and Formation Tactics

Proper board layout prevents King IX IX area-of-effect damage from wiping out your infrastructure before swarms can deploy.

1. Place Rat Warrens in rear corners: Anchor spawner structures in the back corners of your board, ideally behind obstacles or secondary defensive buildings. This shields them from ranged fire and flanking charges.
2. Station Rat Kings behind the frontline: Position Rat King commanders two to three tiles behind your front engagement line. Centering them directly behind advancing swarms keeps them safely outside enemy melee reach while ensuring their attack speed and damage auras cover active combatants.
3. Funnel swarms through central lanes: Allow newly spawned rats to flood forward in staggered waves. Staggering forces heavy enemies to trigger high-damage cooldowns against expendable fodder instead of your core units.

Countering King IX IX Boss Waves

Inflated health pools and elite modifier bonuses make direct physical combat ineffective in high-difficulty milestone years. To neutralize these threats:

• Rely on death-rattle poison stacks: Draft poison perks that trigger upon unit deaths. When elite enemies cleave through your frontline rats, they accumulate stacking percentage-based poison damage that bypasses their defensive modifiers.
• Time the Ratification spell: Hold Ratification until high-threat vanguard pushes and Year 9 boss bruisers make contact with your frontline screen. Casting the spell at the point of collision converts enemy frontline units into allied rats, instantly removing opposing damage threats while replenishing your meat shield.

Deck Management and Economy

Maintaining a small deck size is essential so you reliably draw key infrastructure and utility spells during boss encounters.

• Purge unaligned starter cards: Visit rest sites to remove basic starter cards and low-tier units that dilute your draw pool.
• Upgrade existing structures: Spend excess gold to level up placed Rat Warrens. Upgrades increase unit spawn density without occupying extra grid tiles.
• Reroll late shops for scaling perks: Reserve gold for later shop nodes to aggressively search for Ratification and stacking poison upgrades rather than buying standalone units that lack swarm synergy.