How to use the Curse of Vanishing in Minecraft

One of the many items added to Minecraft over the years is an enchantment called the “Curse of Vanishing.” This enchantment is one of the two “Curse” enchantments in the game.

Curse enchantments apply a negative status effect on the user when equipped by them. The enchantment was introduced to the game with Minecraft’s 1.11 update, which was named the “Exploration” update.

This enchantment comes under the category of “treasure” enchantments. It means that it can not be obtained from the enchantment table. The only methods for a player to obtain this enchantment are looting chests, fishing, or trading.

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Curse of Vanishing: How the enchantment works in Minecraft

When a player dies in the game, they lose all of their items. However, having the Curse of Vanishing enchantment applied to an item will cause it to vanish (literally) upon the player’s death. The negative status effect only comes into play when the player dies. If the enchanted item is manually dropped or placed inside a chest, it will not vanish.

The enchantment's effect stays the same, even if applied to other mobs in the game. For example, if an armored skeleton happens to drop an armor piece that is inflicted with the Curse of Vanishing enchantment, the armor piece will vanish.

One of the best ways to remove or mitigate the effect of this enchantment is to store items inside a shulker box or even an ender chest. This can protect the item since an item enchanted with the enchantment does not disappear if a player dies while the item is placed inside an ender chest. Another method is to switch the “keepinventory” gamerule to “true.”

The Curse of Vanishing is quite unique in the game as it can be applied to the most amount of items. These include some items like the compass, carved pumpkin, and jack o’ lantern. Additionally, players who get an item enchanted with this enchantment in a hardcore Minecraft world should have no concern for the enchantment’s effect, as dying in hardcore mode is permanent.

With a game as popular and content-laden as Minecraft, variety and dynamism are some of the biggest qualities that save it from not getting boring and obsolete. Thankfully, the game’s team at Mojang has been hard at work over the last decade, with new and regular updates making their way to the game.