How to get sponges in Minecraft 1.19 update

Minecraft has a ton of different blocks, each of which plays a unique role in the game. A big chunk of these blocks are used for decoration in building houses, mansions, cities, statues, and other structures.

Other blocks, however, have special functions that assist players during their journey in the game’s world. Workbench blocks like furnaces, smokers, crafting tables, smithing tables, and cartography tables are utilities that help the player in crafting and manufacturing important items like weapons, armor, maps, and more.

One block that can be quite useful to the player is the sponge block.

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Best way to get sponges in Minecraft The Wild Update

Sponges in Minecraft work like they do in real life. They soak up water, and and retain it until the player has the opportunity to drain them. Gamers can only find them under two circumstances within the game. They can either be obtained as a mob drop from the dangerous elder guardian, or they can be mined from within an ocean monument.

Minecraft players can find sponges placed around a specific room known as the “sponge room” in each monument. The best strategy for mining these blocks is to use a hoe of any tier. Wooden take around 0.45 seconds to drop them, while diamond and netherite hoes can drop these blocks in 0.1 seconds.

The primary use for sponges in the Minecraft world is to completely drain out specific areas, as the block removes a large amount of water in one go. When a sponge is used once, it transforms into a “wet” sponge. This variation of the block can be dried out by placing it in a furnace and using a fuel source like coal, wood or lava to turn it back into a regular and dry sponge.

While using the furnace is the most convenient way for most players to dry a wet sponge, a few other natural ways to do the same exist. However, the player has to be in the Nether dimension for one of them to work.

When in the Nether, Minecraft players will notice that if a wet sponge is placed on any surface, it will instantly dry and change to the regular texture. This method works in both the Bedrock and Java editions.

The other two methods to dry out a wet sponge are unique to Minecraft Bedrock. If a wet sponge is placed in any dry or warm biome, such as a desert, savanna, badlands, etc., it will automatically dry out after a few minutes, which will transform it back to its original texture.

Another Bedrock-specific method to dry a wet sponge is to use a source of water. This is because it can absorb the water, and after that, it just vanishes in a puff of smoke.

One of the most significant uses of a sponge on this list is to use it to dry out ocean monuments. While this technique is not that common, players routinely try to completely dry out an ocean monument. They can then use it as a base or storage area. It takes a ton of work to drain an ocean monument, as it is quite big and has residual water falling from every crevice.