Minecraft: 5 great times for new speedrunners

Minecraft is the most speedrun game in the world. There are several contributing factors to this. It is the success of content creators such as Dream who have helped to push speedrunning into the public eye. They bring in new players and the skill and luck required.

However, because speedrunning Minecraft is so popular, there is a lot of competition at the highest and entry-level levels. This article dives into five great tips for players looking to start speedrunning.

Minecraft speedrunners require a unique approach

5) Get a shield

Minecraft speedruns require killing the Ender Dragon in the shortest time possible. These needed steps to do this quickly tend to put players up against endermen, piglins, blaze, and many more of the game’s most deadly mobs.

And since the player needs to go as quickly as possible, there is no time to stop to mine for iron to make armor. Players instead have to rely on iron found in villages to make defenses.

One of the best defensive players can get a shield, which can cancel out incoming damage and make or break a run if used well in the Nether.

4) Practice Bucket Falls

The strategy of falling in the game is known as MLG bucketing. This is a reference to Major League Gaming. The strategy involves canceling all fall damage by using a bucket of water or powdered snow, placing water or snow down undeath the player as they land. This cancels out all fall damage and allows players to travel huge distances vertically in almost no time.

The biggest issue with the method is that it is a high risk, as failure to place down the water or snow at times is a way to guarantee death for both the player and the run. Thus, aspiring speedrunners should make sure to practice the method so that they can do it consistently.

3) Learn how to get ender pearls quickly

Ender pearls are one of the two most important items for speedrunning the game. This is because ender pearls are one of two items needed to complete the run, with the other being blaze rods, which can be turned into blaze powder.

There are a few different methods for getting ender pearls quickly, trapping endermen in boats, farming for them in warped forests, or bartering with piglins, with the latter methods being faster than the prior. Bartering is the fastest way to get ender pearls, though it is also very RNG dependent.

2) Practice bed explosions

The game's beds are the most powerful weapons speedrunners have for defeating the Ender Dragon. Because players cannot sleep in the End, attempting to use a bed creates an explosion intended to kill the player. However, the damage is not exclusive to the player.

As with a lot of unintended interactions between Minecraft's mechanics, players noticed the huge damage that beds deal to the dragon, as well as the ability to avoid all damage by placing the bed on the other side of a block

1) Practice water and lava pool Nether portal building

One of the most important parts of any Minecraft speed run is getting into the Nether. The Nether dimension will allow players to get blaze rods and ender pearls. The rods are turned into powder and then combined with the ender pearls to create the eyes of the ender, which are needed to get to the End dimension to kill the dragon and finish the run.

This means consistently creating the fastest Nether portal is vital to getting good speedrunning times. While players can use seeds that feature ruined portals with enough obsidian to enter the Nether, random seeds are much more likely to feature a lava pool. Hence, players wanting to be more consistent while running must practice their portal crafting.