7 best mining tips and tricks for Minecraft 1.20

Mining never stops in Minecraft 1.20. When players enter a new world in the game, they gather resources and head to the caves to mine for important resources. This can sometimes be a fun way to pass the time, but it can also feel tedious. For years, players have devised various ways to optimize their mining methods. Some techniques are extremely effective and save players time or allow them to gather more resources quickly. Here are some of the tips and tricks for mining in Minecraft 1.20.

Note: This article is subjective and solely reflects the writer's opinion.

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7 useful tips and tricks to mine better in Minecraft 1.20

1) Branch mining

Branch mining covers a lot of area so that players do not miss any important ore block in Minecraft 1.20 (Image via Mojang)

When beginner players mine underground, they usually do a strip mine, which simply includes mining in a straight line. However, they could be missing an extremely rare ore by one block.

Hence, the best way to cover more ground is to branch out. This means creating a main mine that branches out on the left and the right.

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2) Mining with efficiency enchantment

Efficiency enchantment on pickaxe speeds up the mining in Minecraft 1.20 (Image via Mojang)

When explorers mine a block, it takes a certain amount of time for it to break completely. This is the main time-consuming aspect of mining. However, if they use the efficiency enchantment on their pickaxes, the overall mining speed of the tool increases, allowing them to mine through loads of blocks quickly. This is one of the most basic yet great ways to improve mining.

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3) Avoid mining around Deep Dark biome

Deep Dark Biome has sculk sensors that can hear players mining in Minecraft 1.20 (Image via Mojang)

Players must almost always avoid mining through a dark, deep dark biome. This is because the spooky region has sculk sensors that can hear players mining with their pickaxes and activate sculk shriekers. If these shrieking blocks are activated too many times, they will summon the Warden, an extremely powerful hostile mob.

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4) Mining from a distance

Lava can flow out and burn players while mining in Minecraft 1.20 (Image via Mojang)

If players are mining at a level where lava pools frequently generate or if they are mining in the Nether, they must always stay away from the blocks they are about to mine. This is because lava can flow out of any hole and burn players if they are not cautious.

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5) Explosion mining (Nether)

Explode areas of Nether to find Ancient Debris in Minecraft 1.20 (Image via Mojang)

Mining for ancient debris blocks is the most time-consuming and difficult job because they are generated deep in the nether and are extremely rare. Hence, an effective trick to mine is to explode areas of the Nether by using beds as explosives.

Beds explode whenever players try to sleep. Hence, this technique can be used in a clever way to use them as explosives. Alternatively, other explosives can also be used.

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6) Placing torch efficiently

Torches must be placed so that no block is at light level zero in Minecraft 1.20 (Image via Mojang)

New players could be extra cautious and place loads of torches to avoid any hostile mobs spawning. However, they can save a lot of torches by learning at what light-level hostile mobs spawn.

In recent updates, they do not spawn until and unless the light level of a block is zero. No hostile mob will spawn in the overworld, even if a block has one light level. Hence, players can evenly spread their torches away from each other and use them more efficiently.

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7) Use fortune enchantment for mining ores

Always use fortune enchanted pickaxe to mine ores and other important blocks in Minecraft 1.20 (Image via Mojang)

Whenever players mine an ore block, it usually drops a single item. Though it is good enough when starting out, they will soon want more from mining. Hence, they can use fortune enchantment on their pickaxes. This power-up increases the chances of more items dropping from a single block. Hence, if you mine a single ore block with a fortune-enchanted pickaxe, it will drop multiple items instead of just one.