We study complexity in terms of degree growth of one-component lattice equations defined on a $3\times 3$ stencil. The equations include two in Hirota bilinear form and the Boussinesq equations of regular, modified and Schwarzian type. Initial values are given on a staircase or on a corner configuration and depend linearly or rationally on a special variable, for example $f_{n,m}=\alpha_{n,m}z+\beta_{n,m}$, in which case we count the degree in $z$ of the iterates. Known integrable cases have linear growth if only one initial values contains $z$, and quadratic growth if all initial values contain $z$. Even a small deformation of an integrable equation changes the degree growth from polynomial to exponential, because the deformation will change factorization properties and thereby prevent cancellations.