PLUG: I made a video about this on YouTube if you purely want to see me beat the ender dragon, click here.

Minecraft is a game anyone can enjoy, but only a portion of people can actually beat it, and an even smaller portion can beat it without dying. There's a special game mode meant to make the game as hard as possible in Minecraft, and it goes by Hardcore. Hardcore is just as much Minecraft as any of the other game modes, with some slight changes. The most obvious, you only have one life, once you die your world is gone. Everything is also cranked up to 11, the mobs deal way more damage and use actual tactics to fight you instead of just walking towards you. With that being said everything else is exactly like Minecraft.

So how did I win?

Easy, I played like a bitch the entire time, no seriously. I refused to fight consistently until I was rocking decent armor and a Diamond Sword. I also spent most of my time underground hoarding resources to ensure my success. Probably the most important thing I did was protect a village. From the moment I spawned I searched for a village and immediately started gathering resources to build a wall around the village. This ensured the villagers' safety and also a little something called Totems of Undying.

Minecraft 1.14 was the update they overhauled villagers, and at the same time gave them an enemy that would be worth your time to defeat, those enemies being the Pillagers. These evil doppelgangers like to scout out villages and tear them to shreds, but if you kill a captain while they're scouting you'll start what's called a raid.

What is a Raid?

I'm glad you asked nobody. A raid introduces a plethora of pillager enemies to attack you and the village you're protecting. While most of the stuff they drop is useless there's one enemy that drops the totem of undying, the Vindicator. To be frank, the Vindicators are a pain in the ass. They spawn little fairies that are hard to hit and tear you to shreds, oh and they also spawn spikes out of the ground regularly to damage you, but the reward is worth your life. The totem of undying will resurrect you for a one time only deal but when you have more than one life becomes a whole lot less stressful.

The Ender Dragon

After ensuring my safety with everything I could possibly do I had no choice but to face the final boss, the Ender Dragon. I decided to play it as safe as possible, bringing all my totems of undying with me, loads of potions, and a pumpkin on my head. Wait, for what? Yeah, it's a niche thing that was added to the game where if you wear a carved pumpkin on your head Endermen will refuse to get angry when you look at them. This small stupid thing made the fight immensely easier, only having to focus on the dragon itself rather than its entire mob of Endermen. With my Power V Bow in hand, I landed just enough blows to blow the Ender Dragon up and beat the game. All in all, I had loads of fun attempting this and thinking outside the box for different situations. I had to play differently, and I'm a better Minecraft player because of it. Next stop, the Wither.