If you like to decorate in Minecraft and really make spaces your own, you know that each and every block in the game is important. Whether it’s sandstone or cobbled deepslate, furnaces or grindstones, each block has its own look and its own use in a build. That’s especially the case for Sculk, one of the new types of blocks being added to the game in its upcoming 1.19 Wild update. The strange, mossy block has a unique look, and its variants have their own special functions that redstone fans are sure to love. Here’s how you can find Sculk in Minecraft and what you can do with it.
Where Can Sculk be Found?
Sculk is present in one place and one place only in Minecraft: the Deep Dark. A new biome being added in the game’s 1.19 update, the Deep Dark is, as its name implies, found far below ground. Typically, this biome spawns at or below Y= 0, though it can spawn much higher depending on whatever’s on the overworld above it. For example, in our testing we found that a Deep Dark biome can spawn in as high as Y= 70 if it’s below a Stony Peaks biome.
As for actually finding Sculk, you’ll be surrounded by the stuff as soon as you’re properly in a Deep Dark cave. Sculk covers the floors and walls of these areas, though you won’t be able to pick it up without the right tools. Sculk and all of its variant blocks are broken the fastest by hoes rather than pickaxes, swords, shovels, or axes. Likewise, the only way to actually pick up any of these blocks after breaking them is to enchant a tool with silk touch.
What Can You Do With Sculk?
To use Sculk outside of decoration, you have to look for its variants. Basic Sculk is a simple, mossy block that has no effects outside of looking nauseatingly squishy. Sculk Catalysts on the other hand are a special variant of Sculk that can actually grow the block anywhere. Simply place a Sculk Catalyst down (after harvesting it with a tool that has silk touch) and kill something around it. Sculk blocks will spawn whenever a nearby mob dies, consuming the dropped XP in the process.
Sculk Sensors have more utility than other Sculk variants, in that they produce redstone signals. These half-slab blocks can detect vibrations in the ground in a nine block radius, producing a small redstone signal whenever they do. Effectively, these sensors can be used as wide-area pressure plates; activating a contraption whenever someone steps in an area rather than on a specific block.
Finally, Sculk Shriekers promise a good way to scare your fellow Minecraft players. True to their name, these blocks let out a scream whenever they’re activated, either by a redstone signal, a nearby sculk sensor, or by someone stepping on them. After shrieking, Sculk Shriekers also apply the Darkness debuff to all players within 40 blocks for 12 seconds.
What Will Minecraft 1.19 Change?
Whenever it arrives, Minecraft’s Wild update will add the Deep Dark to the game officially, along with a ton of other new content. A new biome, the Mangrove Swamp, will also be introduced. Packed with mud and large Mangrove trees, the biome will also serve as a home for two new mobs, Frogs and Fireflies.
Outside of the swamps, you’ll be able to find two more new mobs in Minecraft after its 1.19 Wild update drops. The first, Allays, can be found either in Woodland Mansions or as prisoners in Pillager Outposts. Once freed and given an item, these helpful sprites will follow you around, picking up any more of that item that it sees until it has a full stack. Wardens on the other hand are terrifying new mobs that make their homes in Ancient Cities, a set of generated structures only found in the Deep Dark.
