Minecraft has survived years at the very top of video games for a reason, there’s tons to do, and tons to learn.

While this can include mods and other inclusions, we’ll go over 10 tricks in vanilla Minecraft that players can incorporate into their next playthrough.

Let’s dive in.

Using Lava in Furnaces

Most Minecraft players have negative experiences with lava. It usually ends in losing a massive amount of diamonds, and a frustrated world restart.

But lava is a massively useful tool, and for more than just creating obsidian.

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Lava can be used as a fuel source for your furnaces, which makes for an infinite supply that lasts a long time each use. Of course keeping lava in your base can be dangerous, but with the proper precautions, this is a great trick to save resources like coal.

Using Cats to Prevent Creepers

If you thought lava was the worst enemy of Minecraft players, think again. This award goes to the always frustrating Creeper.

Creepers can destroy your base just as easily as your belongings, and ruin the look of the area you live in. They can sneak up in caves, or even end up right at your door. 

To keep Creepers at bay, one sneaky trick is to have a lot of Cats tamed as pets.

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Creepers avoid Cats, which means they’re great defense for your base and mine shafts.

Creating Charcoal

Coal is a vital resource in Minecraft, and while you’ll come into a large supply of it naturally after mining for a long time - you’ll need it early on.

If you’re struggling to keep up your coal supplies early on, one way to make up for it is by stocking up on extra wood to create Charcoal.

Charcoal is made by cooking Wood in furnaces.

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This charcoal can be used as efficient fuel, torch fodder, and everything else you’ll need early on.

Placing Doors to Stop Zombies

Every Minecraft player knows the haunting sound of Zombies pounding on the door.

It’s a shock at night that usually immediately precedes a painful death.

One way to stop this problem and make it to the morning without having to fight off the Zombies at your door is by clever door placement.

By placing your door from the side (that is to place it against a wall so that when it “opens” it covers the initial doorway) Zombies will see the door as “open” - and this means they won’t smash it to get in.

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This is a nice trick that costs you nothing but helps secure your base for the occasional Zombie invasion, so it’s worth picking up for your next playthrough!

Countering Enderman with Pumpkins

Enderman can be a friendly mob if you play your cards right, but slip up, and they’re one of the dangerous foes you can face.

One trick, however, neutralizes Enderman entirely, allowing players to take them out with ease.

This trick involves harvesting pumpkins to create helmets.

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Pumpkin helmets cover your eyes, which means you won’t aggro Enderman by looking at them. This also works for combat, which means players can clear out Enderman without a risk as long as they find some pumpkins first.

Using Beds to Defeat the Ender Dragon

Most Minecraft players learned the hard way that beds and the Nether don’t go together. This is because beds explode in the Nether, which is something that ends plenty of playthroughs.

You can use this interaction to your advantage, however, by using beds to defeat the Ender Dragon.

This is accomplished with a very particular timing and placement, perfected by Minecraft speedrunners.

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While it’ll be hard to nail the trick perfectly, the results are massive amounts of damage dealt to the Ender Dragon by jumping, placing a bed where the Ender Dragon will charge, and then smacking the bed to set it off.

You can watch this trick in action here.

Using Hoppers to Rob Piglins

While this trick is more niche, it can save your skin in the Nether when you need it most.

Piglins are a curious mob in Minecraft, and have expanded in the Minecraft Nether Update.

Piglins are peaceful if you have the gold to calm them, but they will still get aggressive if you encroach on their territory. One way to guarantee annoying Piglins is to try and loot their chests in their bases.

This is a problem, however, as these chests often contain fantastic loot.

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To avoid the problem of looting Piglin chests and aggroing all Piglins around you, you can use a hopper to avoid the issue entirely.

By placing a hopper underneath a Piglin chest, you can get the loot from the chest without aggroing the local Piglins, and getting away with their fantastic loot.