To some, Minecraft is a game of patience, a quiet exercise in exploration and creation. But for speedrunners, it’s anything but slow. Minecraft speedrunning is a race against the game itself—a quest to finish as fast as humanly (and digitally) possible, to outwit a pixelated world that’s constantly trying to slow you down. It’s strategy, calculation, and adrenaline all wrapped into one, and for those who master it, there’s an art to completing Minecraft in record-breaking time.

The Art of the Perfect Spawn

In the world of Minecraft speedrunning, where you spawn isn’t just a starting point; it’s the foundation of your run. Seasoned speedrunners know to reset over and over until they land in the perfect location. Ideally, you spawn near a village or a lava pool, essential for crafting the resources you’ll need to enter the Nether quickly. These optimal spawns are more than lucky—they’re meticulously sought after, and a great run can depend on whether you have the patience to keep looking until you land in the ideal spot.

The village is your first goldmine. Look for chests with food and gear, trade with villagers for supplies, and, if you’re lucky, grab beds to prepare for the showdown with the Ender Dragon. Each second spent in the village needs to be purposeful, a delicate dance between looting and leaving. Because in speedrunning, every move matters, and every misstep costs you time.

Crafting Speed: A Lesson in Precision

Speedrunning is a game of moments. Every craft, every click, every placement of a block is part of a larger, perfectly choreographed routine. Iron tools, a bucket for water, and flint and steel for igniting your portal are essentials. To get them quickly, many speedrunners adopt what they call “muscle memory crafting,” a series of fast-paced moves that border on instinct

Crafting isn’t just a matter of skill; it’s a muscle memory, an art of navigating the interface with speed and accuracy. Speedrunners learn the crafting grid by heart, able to create the essentials without a second thought. Every motion is precise, fast, mechanical. There’s no time for hesitation—only rhythm and flow.

Entering the Nether: A Risky Gateway

The Nether is where speedrunning really gets serious. Once you have the materials, create a Nether portal using the “bucket and lava” method—a technique that saves time and resources compared to mining obsidian. Inside, you’re hunting for two crucial items: Blaze Rods from Blazes, and Ender Pearls from trading with Piglins or, if you’re feeling bold, from hunting Endermen in warped forests.

The Nether is a chaotic, hostile place, and every step is dangerous. Blaze spawners are usually tucked within twisting fortresses, guarded by aggressive mobs and surrounded by lava. Here, each second counts, but caution does too. Many speedruns have met their end in the Nether—a misstep, a missed shot, and your journey back to the Overworld vanishes in flames.

Building the Portal to the End

Once you’ve secured Blaze Rods and Ender Pearls, it’s time to return to the Overworld and craft Eyes of Ender. This moment—the final step before entering the End—is full of anticipation. It’s as if the whole world holds its breath as you throw the Eyes, following them toward the stronghold that holds the End portal. With each throw, you’re balancing risk and time. Too many throws, and your Eyes can shatter. Too few, and you risk getting lost.

Once you’ve located the stronghold, you dive into the portal room, activating the portal with the Eyes of Ender. There’s a moment—a heartbeat of calm before the storm—where you know that everything you’ve done has led to this. The portal swirls before you, and on the other side, the Ender Dragon waits.

The Final Battle: Timing and Precision

In the End, speedrunners switch to beds as their weapon of choice. Why beds? In Minecraft, beds explode if you try to sleep in the Nether or the End, creating a powerful blast. Speedrunners use this to their advantage, placing beds near the Ender Dragon as it perches, dealing explosive damage with precision.

Timing is everything. One misplaced bed, and you risk getting caught in the blast yourself. But the best speedrunners have honed this to an art, placing beds in rapid succession, perfectly timed to deliver lethal damage to the dragon. And then, with one final explosion, it’s over. The dragon falls, the portal opens, and the timer stops. The world, at least for a moment, is silent.

The Pursuit of Perfection

Speedrunning Minecraft isn’t just about finishing the game. It’s about the pursuit of perfection, the relentless drive to shave seconds off a run, to craft, to build, to fight with a level of precision that borders on the impossible. For speedrunners, every completed run is a small victory, but the quest continues, each player chasing a time just a little bit faster, a run just a little bit closer to flawless. In the end, it’s not the game they’re racing—it’s themselves. And that’s why speedrunning isn’t just a technique; it’s a passion, a challenge, and an art form all its own.