Minecraft: 10 Tips for Early Game Speedrunning

Speedrunning is a term used to complete a video game as fast as possible, and one of the biggest is within the Minecraft community. With the Speedrunning community in Minecraft growing every day, I have gathered ten tips and tricks for beginner runners for the Overworld. It’s very cool to play as fast as possible because you get to try and reach the limits of Minecraft, which makes this game unique. There are so many things to say, but I feel ten is going to be enough for you to start your early game.

1. Utilizing Villages

Villages are the most common runs in Minecraft. Villages are great because you get everything normally in about 2 minutes. You can grab hay bales to make bread for food, grab stone for tools from the village, beds to kill the Ender Dragon, and kill the Iron Golem for iron. Get a stone axe, pickaxe, and shovel with the stone. Make a bucket and flint and steel with the iron. And get wood and beds for blocks and explosives for the End.

If you don’t want to rely on getting an iron pickaxe later, use Cod Strats, something most players use. Go to a village, and make your tools. Get a hoe instead of a stone pickaxe. Get at minimum 14 hay bales, and make a barrel. With it, make a fisherman villager and reset its trades until you get a cod in a water bucket trade. Trade 60 wheat with a farmer or find emeralds in chests to trade with the fisherman. Finally, make an iron pickaxe with the three iron from the Golem.

2. Hypermodern and Fast Shipwrecks

Shipwrecks are considered an easy way to get a great time and can get you everything you need in under 1 minute. If you find a Shipwreck, it’s essential to identify what kind it is and where certain parts are. An upright shipwreck always has a food chest, map chest, and loot chest. The food chest is at the front, the map chest is opposite the food chest, and the loot chest is at the top. Shipwrecks on the side always have a food chest and usually have a loot chest room. Upside downs don’t always have loot chest rooms and have the map and food chests. Full masts are considered the best by the speedrunning community because of the amount of wood you get from the masts and are always upright.

3. Explosive Temple Runs

Temples are the most hectic runs and can get you resources in little time. They don’t give you a great time but are enjoyable to run in my opinion. When you find a temple in the desert, drop down into the chamber, and blow it up with one TNT after getting it all from below. Make sure there is a block in between you and the TNT. You get blocks and hopefully iron and some golden apples when it explodes. You’ll be blowing up gravel and wood most of the run. You will sometimes be blowing up iron if you don’t get everything you need from the temple. You will have a messy inventory for most of the run. (Hint, if you have an extra TNT leftover and have a bridge bastion, blow up the gold blocks instead of mining it all up, which takes longer).

4. 9/9 for Great Treasure

This is used by experienced runners. It’s difficult to do.

For those unaware of this, if you find a buried treasure map and follow it, you might have trouble finding the treasure. Turn on your F3 screen when you are in the chunk with the Treasure. Go to 9 9 on your chunk, dig down, and you will always come to treasure. Buried treasure can give you great loot, such as iron, diamonds, and gold. It also contains food and TNT. The TNT can be used to get more blocks in less time. A more experienced way to find treasure is by using mapless.

5. Monument Runs

This one is easy to use.

Monuments are infamous for the three elder guardians and jump scaring players and giving them mining fatigue, but they contain great loot, eight gold blocks that can be used to trade for ender pearls. To get the blocks of precious gold, turn your render distance down to 2 (Warning, this only works on single player worlds). This prevents the elder guardians from “donging” you, as Speedrunner Couriway calls it. Then enter from the back, dig with an iron pickaxe into the monument, and get to the gold chamber with dark prismarine. Get the gold, and exit as fast as you can.

6. Old Structureless Runs

Typically not a run most people do, but they are okay to run, in my opinion. They are least luck reliable but give you a slow nether entry. If you are not in the mood for a run with structures, go into a cave and make a furnace, stone axe, shovel, and pickaxe. After that, mine a minimum of 7 iron and one coal. Put your wooden pickaxe and coal in the furnace to smelt iron. Next, find gravel and mine it for flint. Once your iron smelts, make a bucket, iron pickaxe, flint, and steel once your iron smelts. Use your flint and steel for cooking food (place fire underneath an animal, and kill the animal). The animal should give you Cooked food. Note that it’s best to do this when you are near a lava pool.

7. Version 1.16.2 + Sodium Mod

Warning! Not all computers can install Sodium.

This video was made in the past. The process should be the same.

If you are playing 1.16, try playing on 1.16.1. If you play above, you will have bad ender pearl trades, and there will be Piglin Brutes in bastions. If you want to play above, you need to play for a looting sword by changing a weaponsmith’s trades until you get a looting sword trade or quickly get a looting sword in a bastion. This also means you want a fortress and warped forest close by (to kill Endermen instead of trading with Piglins). Using the sodium mod is a good move, especially if you have a laggy computer. The Sodium mod reduces lag on your computer to better your gaming experience. If you are willing to get more mods that Speedrunners use, check K4four to set up your Minecraft. (warning Java edition only).

8. Crazy Fast Portal Making

This strategy is very simple to use.

To get into the Nether, you need to be fast to get a good time and who wants to enter in under 10 minutes. This helps you get a great time when speed running. Before going to the nether, you need to make a nether portal. To make one above ground, make an L shape upside down one block in front of a lava pool. Then make a one-block gap, and place two blocks. After that, place a block in the middle of the one-block gap in the pool. Place water, mine the block in the pool and scoop up the water. Then put blocks behind so water doesn’t pour onto the lava. Place the water on the corner of the L. Put lava in your bucket, and place it to make a frame for your nether portal. Scoop up the water and light it.

9. Modern Underwater Portals

Under water portal (java edition only)

Underwater portals are fascinating to watch, and you don’t need to waste time going to land, and you don’t need to look for a cave. If you are in the ocean and see a magma ravine, look for an L shape in the water. Place a door after you mine an end of the L, and place two doors opposite of you on the two magma blocks in front of you. Place a block next to your door in the gap, depending on where the frame will go. Then scoop up the lava below the magma blocks and behind them. Create the frame and light it up.

10. Using F3 and Shift to be Prepared

If you use F3 + Shift, you don’t waste time looking for fortresses and looking for certain houses in Villages. When doing a village run or finding a specific block entity giving away what houses there are. Open up F3 and Shift on your keyboard. Then go through the options in Order; Tick, Level, Entity, Block Entities. This finds block entities. If you have a furnace in a plains village, it means you have a blacksmith. If you have a Bell, it means you have a village in your Render Distance.

These are ten Overworld tips for speedrunning. A huge thank you to content creator Dream for finding my passion for speedrunning the game, runners Couriway, Feinberg, and many others for showing me that we have bad seeds every day, and current RSG World Record Holder Brentilda inspiring the world that sub 10 is possible. If you are interested in more speedrunning Minecraft tips, you can search on Youtube.