How to Speedrun Minecraft (Beginner Any% Guide)

Guide Java Bedrock

Quick answer: The Any% route: village or shipwreck start for food and beds, bucket early, build a nether portal with the bucket method, trade gold with piglins for ender pearls, get blaze rods, find the stronghold and kill the dragon with beds. Casual runs take 30-60 minutes.

What you need

A random seed (Any% rules) - set seed runs are a separate category
A water bucket as early as possible
Beds for the dragon fight - 4 or 5

Step by step

Start: grab food, wood and a bed fast. Villages and shipwrecks give food, beds and iron - reset weak starts without mercy.
Iron bucket first: carry water for cliffs, lava and enderman defense.
Nether entry: speedrunners skip the diamond pickaxe - shape a portal frame by pouring lava with the bucket and turning it to obsidian (the 'bucket method').
In the Nether: find a bastion remnant and trade gold to piglins for ender pearls; find a fortress and kill blazes for 7-8 blaze rods.
Back in the Overworld, throw eyes of ender to triangulate the stronghold, dig down and fill the portal.
The dragon: place beds at the fountain, wait for it to perch, and click the bed as its head arrives - bed explosions ignore armor and melt its health.
Practice segments separately (bastion routes, fortress spawns) before chaining full runs. Timing tools and the leaderboard live on speedrun.com - free.

Java vs Bedrock

Java dominates competitive speedrunning. Bedrock has its own categories with different routes - the bed explosion trick works on both.

Versions: Runs happen mostly on recent versions (1.16.1 was the classic Any% version; current categories use newer ones). Mechanics described work in all 1.16+ versions.

Frequently asked questions

Is speedrunning free?

Yes - the game you already own plus free tools (speedrun.com leaderboards, practice maps). Nothing to buy.

Why do runners use beds on the dragon?

Beds explode when used in the End, and the explosion does huge damage to the perched dragon - faster than any sword.