How to get zombie villagers in Minecraft Skyblock

In Minecraft's highly popular Skyblock survival map type, zombie villagers are one of the most vital resources, as players cannot access villager trades without curing zombie villagers first.

Within Skyblock, every villager is precious, meaning converting every zombie villager is also crucial until players have the capability to breed their ordinary villagers.

While some will want to cure a large swath of zombie villagers to get enough villagers to breed in the first place, existing zombie villagers can re-infect ordinary ones depending on the difficulty that Minecraft is currently set to. With all these parameters in mind, there is a defined mechanic that decides how many zombie villagers will spawn on a player's Skyblock map at a time.

Minecraft: How zombie villager spawns work

Unassisted by the player, every time Minecraft generates a group of zombies, there is a defined statistic that decides which zombies can become zombie villagers. In Minecraft's Bedrock Edition, there is a 5% chance that a group of zombies will spawn as zombie villagers.

In Java Edition, there is a 5% chance that the group will have one zombie villager, making things a little trickier for Java Skyblock players. Skyblock multiplayer servers have been amended for this, but single player maps can be much more of a challenge when it comes to waiting for the game's spawning system to do its thing.

Additionally, depending on the current difficulty setting, zombies have a chance to convert villagers into zombie villagers upon killing them. This is a 0% chance on Easy, but a 50% chance on Normal and a 100% chance on Hard mode.

This is essentially counter-intuitive when it comes to Skyblock players conserving their villagers, so it's best avoided.

For Skyblock players looking to get more zombie villagers without the hassle of them potentially attacking their own flock of villagers (or the players themselves), it may be wise to create a mob spawner. Although these also collect hostile mobs such as spiders, skeletons, and Creepers, it can make the process of finding zombie villagers somewhat more helpful.

For players hoping to cure zombie villagers via a witch's Splash Potion of Weakness combined with a golden apple, they may want to isolate the desired zombie villager first.

With the assistance of simple blocks such as wood and cobblestone, along with a little water, building a mob spawner can work alongside Minecraft's spawning mechanics and provide players with a steady income of zombie villagers.