Block of the Month

What are the ingredients that you’d mix together to make Minecraft? Mining and crafting are the basics, obviously. A big helping of exploration. A dash of building, and a sprinkle of combat. Pinches of farming and trading. Perhaps even a soupçon of enchanting and automation.

Right now, Mojang Studios' top nutritionists don’t recommend eating iron blocks. But you never know what that advice might change – so it’s probably best to stockpile some in your chests. Just in case.

Want a vault for yourself? Well sorry, you can’t have one. At least, not in survival mode. Vaults take forever to break, and when they do they drop nothing - even with a Silk Touch enchantment. No – they can’t be moved with pistons either.

You might think that gathering nylium of either variety is easy. Whack it with a pickaxe, right? But it turns out that the fungal matter it contains is pretty fragile, so in order to collect it, you’ll need to use a silk touch pickaxe. If you lack the sophisticated tool for the job, it can also occasionally be found in hoglin stables in bastion remnants.

In Minecraft, you won’t need to wait that long but it’s still not fast. A few in-game weeks should do the trick. But don’t rush it! Sit back, and enjoy the slow, beautiful process of chemistry in action.