The last significant update to Minecraft, released in June 2020, added a slew of new additions to the Nether. Among these updates was the addition of Netherite, a new crafting material that can craft the strongest item in the game. How exactly do you get Netherite? And what’s the most effective way to go about it?
Netherite comes from smelting Ancient Debris, a material that spawns in the Nether. Like diamond, it can take a lot of time and patience to find Ancient Debris, especially enough of it to be worth anything. However, there is a surprisingly common secret weapon that will help you in your quest for those precious blocks!
If you’re looking to outfit yourself with Netherite armor, tools, and weapons, you’re going to need a lot of Ancient Debris. Every block generates one Netherite Scrap when melted down and you need four scraps (plus four gold ingots) to create one Netherite Ingot. That’s a minimum of 16 Debris blocks just for a full set of Netherite armor.
Strip mining for Ancient Debris is fairly effective, especially if you’re using a diamond pickaxe, which makes short work of Netherrack. If you’re lucky, you’ll find Debris in clusters of two or three blocks. However, there is a much faster way to locate Debris and that includes something we all take advantage of in the Overworld: beds.
Yes, simple beds, made from just wood and wool, are an invaluable tool for collecting Ancient Debris (and Nether Quartz Ore for that matter). For those who don’t know, you’re not able to sleep in the Nether. In fact, if you so much as try to lie down in a bed, the bed explodes, resulting in damages that even exceed that of TNT blocks.
While Netherrack is weak and disintegrates like paper, tougher blocks like Nether Quartz Ore and Ancient Debris can survive the blast. This means that you can quickly clear out a massive chunk of Netherrack while leaving the valuable blocks intact and ready to be grabbed. Make sure you have a diamond pickaxe when harvesting Ancient Debris, otherwise it will just be destroyed.
Now, you do have to be close enough to the bed to attempt to lie down. This means that you’ll be caught in the blast. There’s simply no way around it. However, if you wear diamond armor (or even Netherite, if you already have some) and stand as far back as possible, you should be able to reduce the damage to a single heart or even half a heart.
Furthermore, if you place a block of cobblestone or some other strong equivalent between you and the bed, you should be able to mitigate even more damage. Just make sure you have plenty of food on you so you can stay full and continuously heal.
Lastly, if you take some fire resistance potions, you won’t find yourself engulfed in flames every time you explode a bed.
So there you have it. Stock up on food, beds, and fire resistance potions, head to slightly above bedrock in the Nether (level 15 or so, if you have coordinates enabled), and start blast mining left and right. It might get tedious, but much less so than hours of strip mining.