What it is
Ultra hardcore, fought by clans
UHC has one rule that changes everything: your health does not regenerate. No amount of food brings a heart back. The only healing in the game is a golden apple, and gold is something you have to go and dig up. Every hit you take is permanent until you earn the gold to undo it.
On top of that, this one is fought by clans, all of them at the same time. Your team is your side. You cannot hurt each other, and you win or lose together — the last clan with somebody still standing takes it.
It runs in its own world, generated fresh for the event, with its own nether. Nothing that happens in there touches the survival map, and anybody who sits it out will not notice a thing.
The 100 minutes
How the night runs
Three phases. The border is the clock — where it is tells you which one you are in.
Sign-ups open
Type /war in game. A board appears on the right with the countdown,
how many clans are in, and how many of your own clan signed up. Your sign-up
sticks — log off and come back, it is still there.
Everyone drops in
Clans are spread around a circle roughly 1000 blocks from the middle, always on dry land. Ten seconds frozen, then go. You have a wooden pickaxe, axe, shovel and sword. Everything else you dig up yourself.
45 minutes of peace
Nobody can be hurt by anybody, and the border stands completely still. This is your only chance to mine, so use all of it — iron, diamonds, and above all gold, because golden apples are the only healing you will get.
PvP opens, the border starts closing
Both at once, on purpose. From this second the edge of the map moves in at roughly 22 blocks a minute. Standing outside it hurts.
The nether shuts, the first crate lands
Portals stop working and anyone still down there is pulled to the surface, with warnings beforehand. In the same moment the first supply drop hits the map — a chest of diamond gear, golden apples and pearls, with the coordinates posted in chat.
A crate every six minutes
Announced with the coordinates, your own distance to them, and fireworks over the spot. Nothing inside is enchanted — a drop is meant to start a fight, not to end one.
Enemy Tracker
Once the border is under 400 blocks everyone is handed a compass. Right click it and it pings the nearest enemy — direction, distance, and a note that rises the closer they are.
Final heal and meetup
The border stops at 50 blocks. Everyone still alive is healed to full and pulled to the middle in a ring. Whoever spent the war mining carefully and whoever spent it fighting walk in on the same health. There is nowhere left to hide.
The ruleset
What is different from normal Minecraft
No natural regeneration
Eating fills your hunger bar and nothing else. Hearts only come back from golden apples, potions and golden heads.
Golden heads
Kill someone and you are handed their head — a real head, gold, that you eat like an apple. It heals far harder than a golden apple.
More apples in the trees
Oak leaves drop apples ten times as often as usual. Vanilla's rate would leave most people unable to craft the one thing that heals them.
No notch apples
Enchanted golden apples do nothing if you eat one. They cannot be crafted and heal through anything, so whoever looted one would win fights they should have lost.
Strength is halved
Modern Strength adds a flat three damage per level, far more than the UHC these rules come from. Left alone, one brewing stand decides the war.
Pearls are free
Throwing an ender pearl costs you no health. Pearling mid fight should be a decision, not a self-inflicted wound.
No friendly fire
You cannot hit your own clan, and no team setting can make one clan immune to another. Everyone outside your clan is fair game.
Its own dimension
A fresh vanilla world with caves, ores, mobs and villages, plus its own nether. There is no end, and no portal leads back to the survival world.
Locked to midday
No weather and no night. A downpour or a field of mobs during the last fight decides a war for reasons that have nothing to do with either clan.
Before Saturday
Four things to sort out
Be in a clan
No team means you cannot take part at all. If you are not in one yet, join or make one well before the night — not five minutes before.
Get your clan signed up
The board shows how many of your clan are in, out of how many there are. If it says 4 of 7, go and find the other three.
Bring nothing
Your inventory, your XP, your position and your bed are all put away when the war starts and given straight back when it ends. Nothing you own is at risk, and nothing you carry in helps you.
Know the two escapes
Dying during the first 45 minutes does not put you out — you respawn and carry on, with your gear left where you fell. Disconnecting gives you five minutes to get back in before you are counted out.
The War Mace
There are three maces on this server. The Dragon Mace was forged from the dragon egg. The Treasure Mace came out of the treasure hunt. This is the third, and there will not be a fourth.
It does not go to the winning clan as a whole. It goes to the one person who lands the final kill of the war.
Protected like the other two
- Cannot go in an ender chest or a team enderchest
- Survives lava, fire and the void
- Cannot be renamed on an anvil
- Picking it up off the ground is announced server-wide
In game
Commands
Only messaging commands work while you are in a war. These always do.
/warSign up. Type it again to see where you stand./leaveWithdraw before it starts, give up during it, or stop spectating./msgMessaging still works. Everything else is blocked until you are out./leave takes you home whenever you have seen enough.
If you want to win
Four things that decide it
Gold beats diamonds. Diamond armour is worth having, but the player who comes out of the ground with eight golden apples beats the player who comes out with a better sword and none. You cannot heal any other way.
Use all 45 minutes. The border does not move and nobody can touch you. Every minute spent above ground looking around is a minute not spent mining.
Stay near your clan. Your board shows every clan mate's health, how far away they are and which way to walk. Two people who arrive together beat two who arrive one after the other.
Go to the drops. They are announced to everyone, so somebody will be there. That is the point — a crate is a fight you can plan for instead of one that finds you.