An Introduction to Minecraft Speedrunning

The end goal of a Minecraft speedrun is to defeat the Ender Dragon, but doing so quickly requires a combination of skill, game knowledge, and luck.

Speedrunning video games have soared immensely in popularity recently, as more and more people are viewing the craft as a legitimate form of competitive and fun play.

This fact, along with resurgence of Minecraft's popularity, has made Minecraft a desirable game choice to speedrun for incoming players to the speedrunning community

On paper, speedrunning Minecraft's most popular categories has a very simple and straight forward goal, kill the Ender Dragon as fast as possible. However, there are some intricate nuances and RNG luck that are required in order to have a successful run, on top of exceptional gameplay by the runner.

In order to beat the game, players will need to activate the End Portal with twelve eyes of ender, which can be obtained via crafting components from the Nether. Getting to everywhere and acquiring everything necessary quickly, is the tricky part of the entire process.

This article will be showcasing the different types of speedruns a player can do in Minecraft, as well as break down the basics and requirements to complete a Minecraft Any% Glitchless Random Seed 1.16 run.

Disclaimer: This article is focusing on Minecraft Java Edition. However, it should be noted that speedruns done on Bedrock Edition are just as impressive. This was done only to simplify the explanation.

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An Introduction to Minecraft Speedrunning

There are a couple main categories to speedrun in Minecraft, with the addition of a few other arbitrary and niche ones.

When making a speedrunning attempt players can do so on a completely random seed or a set seed of their choosing. In addition, a runner can decide if they want to use glitches or not.

To add even more choice, players also have the option to decide which version or patch update of Minecraft they want to play on. Lastly, they can also decide if they want to just kill the Ender Dragon or finish the game with 100% completion.

The choices made here by the player determine what category of Minecraft speedrunning the player will be competing in.

As an example, Minecraft has actually been beaten in under 2 minutes of in-game time on a set seed with the use of glitches in Minecraft 1.16.

Completing this run requires picture perfect precise movement and the clever usage of an item duplication glitch.

The Minecraft speedrunning category that is by far the most popular is Any% Glitchless Random Seed 1.16, which is performed by a variety of popular Twitch streamers and gaming personalities.

This means that players are required to defeat the Ender Dragon as fast as possible, on a completely random seed without the use of glitches on Minecraft 1.16.

This is also the category that the remainder of this article will be focusing on.

Félix "xQcOW" Lengyel and Sebastian "Forsen" Fors have a heated rivalry competing in this category to see who can get the fastest time.

This is also the same category that Minecraft sensation Clay "Dream" was under fire for, due to a cheating scandal that seized the internet's attention.

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Requirements for completing a Minecraft Any% Glitchless Random Seed 1.16 run

It needs to be stated that speedrunning this category at a high-level takes a massive investment in time. There are a number of interactions that require the player to get lucky and get good RNG that is out of their control, on top of exceptional gameplay and skill.

That doesn't mean that players cannot still have fun and compete in the process. Newer speedrunners should not get discouraged or feel the need to compare their times to that of some of the best Minecraft speedrunners in the world.

At the end of the day speedrunning is supposed to be fun!

Now then, to complete one of these runs players will need to continually make new worlds until they spawn within close proximity of a village.

Players need to do this because there are so many items at a village that the player will need in order to complete the run quickly. Resetting until a village is available saves a great deal of precious time.

When at the village, players need to collect at least seven beds from the houses, kill the iron golem for iron to make a bucket, flint and steel, get a basic set of stone tools, and get bread courtesy of the haybales.

Once geared up, Minecraft players will need to find a lava pit to construct a Nether Portal. Players can do this quickly by using a clever technique, which can be rather tricky to do. Even exceptional speedrunners mess it up sometimes as can be seen here by Kye "Illumina".

When inside of the Nether, Minecraft players will need to get gold in order to trade with piglins. The item that players are after are ender pearls, which can be acquired via trading with piglins.

The trading itself can be extremely frustrating as this is heavily RNG dependent, and players need to get a number of ender pearls to beat the game.

After that is done, players will need to locate a Nether Fortress to find a blaze spawner and some blazes. Players will need to kill enough blazes until they get the required number of blaze rods. These rods can than be turned into blaze powder, which can in turn be combined with ender pearls to make eyes of ender.

Twelve eyes of ender is the minimum number, but more could be required in order to both find and activate the End Portal.

Minecraft players will then need to exit the Nether, and find the portal room of the stronghold. They need to activate the End Portal with their eyes of ender, and go inside and slay the Ender Dragon.

The fastest way to kill the Ender Dragon is by using a one-cycle technique by making the beds explode to cause damage to the dragon.

Once the dragon is dead, Minecraft players have completed the run.

That all sounds super easy right? No, it's really not. It takes practice, luck, and exceptional skill at Minecraft in order to do all of this quickly without messing up.

If players get bad luck or mess up at any point, they will typically reset the speedrun attempt and try over.

Those are the bare minimum basics for completing a Minecraft speedrun, good luck to anyone who decides to jump into the fray.