How to prevent phantoms from spawning in Minecraft 1.19 update

Debuting as a result of the 2017 Minecraft Live Mob Vote, phantoms are a frightening mob to face. When night arrives and hostile mobs start spawning, they are perhaps the most difficult to deal with.

Phantoms were first added to the game in the 1.13 update after eking out a victory in the Mob Vote. Since then, they've terrorized the night skies and attacked players without warning.

When night falls, users often look to the skies to ensure phantoms are not swirling. Some nights, the sky is overwhelmed with these mobs, while other nights, there are none or very few.

Here's how they spawn, why they spawn, and most importantly, how to stop them from spawning in the latest version of Minecraft.

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Phantoms in Minecraft 1.19: A complete guide

Phantoms spawn when gamers don't sleep. As with all hostile mobs, the way to prevent them from spawning is to sleep the night away. Hostile mobs won't spawn during the day, so keeping it daytime is a safe way to avoid all hostile mobs from spawning.

However, phantoms are slightly different, as they don't spawn daily. They begin spawning every three days, but with one caveat: only if Minecraft gamers don't sleep.

If players sleep through and skip the night once every three days, they'll never see phantoms spawn. Phantoms are a product of the lack of sleep in a Minecraft world.

As an alternative to sleeping, if users don't die for three days, phantoms will begin spawning.

Bedrock Edition and Java Edition have a few key differences in how these mobs spawn. According to the Minecraft Wiki, in Bedrock Edition:

"The spawn location must have a light level of 7 or less, and spawns are limited by the monster population cap."

In Java Edition, the spawning is much more frequent. They'll spawn in groups based on the difficulty level and don't have to adhere to the mob cap. In fact, they spawn "based on the location of players in the world rather than by chance" (Minecraft Wiki).

Many gamers will not realize that phantoms have spawned until they randomly get struck by one that descended out of the night sky. In that case, going to sleep will prevent them from spawning anymore and will prevent them from showing up for the next few nights.

They are an important hostile mob, though, so it may be beneficial to let them spawn. Here's what players should know.

First, they're an undead mob, meaning the Smite enchantment does extra damage to them. Sharpness is an all-encompassing damage increase, but for undead mobs like phantoms, Smite is special.

Second, they drop phantom membranes. These are used to repair elytras or to make Potions of Slow Falling. Either way, collecting them is handy.

Phantoms swoop down from the sky (Image via Mojang)

Third, phantoms swoop down once in a while and attack before retreating to the sky. When a phantom comes down, it's imperative to land a hit because it will be a while before it tries again, and users might not kill it before daytime.

Finally, they will burn in daylight but won't drop any membranes if they die that way. They have to be manually killed.