How does the sculk shrieker work in Minecraft 1.19 update?

In the Minecraft 1.19 update, the sculk shrieker block is arguably the scariest and most dangerous new addition to the list of blocks in the game. Not only does the block summon the new terrifying Warden, even the look and behavior of the block are spooky for players.

The long-awaited Deep Dark Caves biome was finally released in The Wild Update on June 7, 2022, and millions of players are experiencing these blocks and the Warden for the first time. The Deep Dark and the Warden were introduced in 2020 for the Caves and Cliffs update. However, Mojang announced that these features would be pushed to the next update as they want to expand on them.

Fast forward to 2021, and Mojang announced a bunch of new features for Minecraft 1.19, including the sculk shrieker that blew everyone's minds. If gamers want to venture deep into the scary biome, they must know exactly how the shrieker works.

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Mechanics of the new Sculk Shrieker block in Minecraft 1.19 update

Block generation

Shrieker is rarer than sensors, and normal sculk (Image via Minecraft 1.19)

Players who dig deep below Y level 0 in Minecraft 1.19 might find the new Deep Dark biome generated amongst deepslate blocks. The most striking feature of this biome will be the dark sculk blocks. The most common block will be sculk, which will determine the biome itself.

Once players sneak deeper into the biome, they will start seeing sculk sensors, catalysts, and shriekers. The sculk shrieker blocks are some of the rarest out of all the other sculk blocks.

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How does the block activate?

Activated shrieker (Image via Minecraft 1.19)

These sculk blocks, especially sensors and shriekers, have special abilities to detect sound vibrations in Minecraft 1.19. Whenever a player or a mob makes any kind of sound, the sculk sensor block activates. However, the sculk shrieker will only activate if the player makes a sound.

The chain of sound detection starts off with a sculk sensor. The sensor detects whether a player or a mob is making a sound vibration. If it detects a mob, the sensor does not activate the shrieker. However, if a player makes any kind of noise, the sensor immediately sends a signal to the shrieker as well.

Once the shrieker receives the signal, it lets out a loud ghastly scream with concentric circular particles coming out of the block. This also puts a new 'darkness' effect on the players for 12 seconds. This is essentially the first warning from the block.

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Spawning the Warden and cooldown mechanism

Warden spawns after three mistakes (Image via Minecraft 1.19)

Luckily for gamers, the shrieker block does not summon the Warden right after the first shriek. It gives players up to three chances before summoning the beast. This means that players can make three mistakes. These chances are called 'warning' levels.

These warning levels are specific to the player and not to any individual sculk shrieker blocks. If a player sneaks away and triggers a different shrieker, the warning level will increase to two rather than resetting itself.

If players want to decrease their warning level for the Warden spawn, they must not make any sound for at least 10 minutes. Each warning level goes down after 10 minutes.

Aside from this, if players break the sculk shrieker block and place it again, that particular block loses its ability to spawn the beast. Only the shriekers that are naturally generated in the biome can spawn the Warden.