pikaJ – The Illumina Curse: Minecraft Speedrunning’s Strangest Phenomenon

Minecraft random seed glitchless speedruns can be unpredictable to say the least there could be periods of many months between new world records then suddenly multiple world records in a short time span for every world record there is a former world record and as with all things in life someone will

Inevitably get the short end of the stick well there’s been one person in particular who has had many of their world records sniped within days of getting them even once within seconds i’m talking about illumina and in this video i’m going to go over some coincidences that are almost too surreal

To be real On may 5th 2020 illumina and real bennex were both live streaming their runs on version 1.14 in hopes of getting the first sub 25. about an hour into benix’s stream he loaded up a world and illumina did the same 10 seconds later little did either of them know they would both be

Breaking the world record at the same time being that this is 1.14 classic you may be unfamiliar with how the run works so i’m here to tell you after gathering basic resources players enter the nether and get blaze rods they will also get tnt from desert temples and use it to

Blow up savannah villages or dark oak forests this is because you can trade villagers sticks for emeralds and emeralds for ender pearls which is way faster than just killing endermen after pearls and rods are obtained players head to the stronghold enter the end and kill the ender dragon anyways where were

We oh yeah they both just created their worlds bennex spawned near a village with a desert temple close behind him a very good spawn a luminous spawn was eerily similar but instead of a plains village he had a desert one over the next few minutes both players collected

Basic resources such as tools food and iron and the first one to enter the nether was benex about a minute and a half later illumina would enter but bennex already had collected three blaze rods by that time remember though blaze rods are very rng dependent not only do

They have a fifty percent chance of dropping but the amount of blazes that will spawn every cycle ranges between one and four bennex got pretty good drop rates going 7 for 11 taking 2 minutes to acquire those and illumina went 7 for 12 but only used a minute and 40 seconds

Killing blazes with a combination of better spawn rates and finding a stray blaze he was able to gain some time back on bennex only to have that become obsolete due to his nether portal’s proximity to the fortress not being great anyways with both players back in

The overworld now is a good time to remind you that neither of their villagers were savannah ones so they had some exploring to do benex chose to travel by horseback and by the time illumina was exiting the nether he had located a dark oak forest and was blowing up trees illumina however was

Able to find a savannah village contrary to what you may think at this point both runners are on virtually the same pace even though benix was a head of illumina exiting the nether having to travel to a dark oak forest and back to a village

For trades is a time loss over the next few minutes both players got their wood and started their trades but what i haven’t told you get is that the most tense part of the run was quickly approaching you see when unlocking the third trade from a cleric you actually

Have a two out of three chance of getting the ender pearl trade one third of the time you will get glass bottles and the glass bottle procedure is to reset the run fortunately for the runners they both got the ender pearl trade meaning that statistically you probably shouldn’t speedrun version 1.14

Directly after watching this video anyways benex threw his first eye of ender at 15 35 and illumina did so at 15 58 now the journey to the stronghold so let’s get forward a few minutes benex located the stronghold and started digging down at 2007 and about 35 seconds later he entered the end

Illumina started digging down at 2103 and his stronghold layout was much worse than bennex’s so he wasn’t in the end until 22-25 a minute and 22 seconds behind bennex now the only thing standing in both of their ways was the ender dragon the end fight strategy for

This time period was to bow down the towers and deal damage to the dragon when it purchased by exploding beds and whacking it with a sword while it’s not perching players usually try to chip away its health with arrows typically it would take two purchase to be able to

Kill the dragon but perch speed is very dependent on rng while aluminum may have entered the end much slower than bennex both of their second dragon purchase happened at around the same time with illumina getting his 10 seconds ahead of bennex with a final bed explosion illumina killed the dragon at 24-37

Finishing the run with a time of 24-46 benex killed the dragon at 24-42 and finished the run with a time of 24 minutes and 52 seconds incredibly they finish their runs a full three seconds apart from each other making this most likely the most unlikely event to have

Ever taken place in speedrunning now that is a sentence you gotta say five times fast i’m gonna show their final time side by side and i want you to tell me who you think got the world record is it a illumina b bennex or c matthew bolen if you guessed a you would

Actually be incorrect because these timers aren’t what’s used to properly time a run minecraft speedruns are timed using in-game time to avoid hardware discrepancies and benix had a worse pc than illumina in turn he had to spend a total of 15 seconds loading dimensions while illumina only had to spend 6. when

These runs happened illumina had the world record but after a thorough retime benex was given the title in other words illumina’s world record lasted for 3 seconds let’s skip forward nearly 11 months to february 22nd 2021 well after version 1.16 had been released at the time the world record was shared between raynex

And xylonox both with times of 14 minutes and 7 seconds on the first run of his stream illumina loaded into a pretty good seed he spawned near a village and that village had two blacksmith houses which together contained nine obsidian and an iron pickaxe after killing the iron golem to

Be able to craft a bucket in flint and steel he entered the nether at three minutes at this time illumina didn’t use the f3 function which lets a player know if and when there is a bastion within render distance in the nether so spawning in a basalt delta wasn’t a

Fantastic sign not only can bastions not spawn there but movement speed can be pretty limited fortunately he soon stumbled upon another waste biome and with it a fortress upon climbing up to the fortress he was able to see a treasure bastion in the distance and at this point he realized that this could

Be a really good run now a lot of players would play the bastion first in this scenario because piglen trades give fire resistance and blazes are scary and shoot fireballs that hurt alumina on the other hand is built like a gustav gun and played fortress first showing those

Blazes who’s boss this decision paid off because he went 6-7 on blaze rod drop rates now for the bastion which was a treasure type with treasures players typically mine two gold blocks on the bridge make their way up the stairs to where the rest of the gold is and trade

With piglens illumi’s route was pretty similar except for the fact that there was some lava flow blocking part of the path sometimes lava flowing in bastions can mean just having to reset the run but illumina was fortunate in still being able to go up the stairs once he

Had piglen’s trading he mined the necessary gold and threw down his exiting nether portal right in the bastion illumina left the bastion at 8 30 and the stronghold was super far away on top of that the terrain he had to traverse in the beginning was awful but

It was saved by him getting plenty of ender pearls from the bastion soon enough he hid an ocean and for the remaining distance he just had to boat because the stronghold was ocean exposed and most importantly so was the porter room illuminae entered the end at 12 30

And everything was now in the hands of the dragon as the time ticked the window for world record was shrinking but alas at 13 33 the dragon perched and he performed a very clean one cycle finishing the run with a time of 13 minutes and 53 seconds he had just set a

New world record and gotten the first ever sub 14 minute run nearly six months after carbondos got the first sub 15. this run was a big deal he had proven that it was possible to get a 1.16 random c glitchless world record without using f3 not only does this run have 3.7

Million views on youtube but karl jobs even made a video about it calling illumina the goat of minecraft speedrunning this run single-handedly ended world hunger brought peace to the middle east and it was broken not 24 hours later okay let’s backtrack for a second who broke the record well none other than

The man with 13 letters in his name two letter name now at the time tln which is what i’ll now refer to him as had a personal best of 15 24 and was fiending for that sub 15. well he did one better and got a sub 14. instead of fully

Breaking down this run i’m gonna drop parallels to illumina’s run instead of spawning near a village he instead spawned near an ocean where he got ironed from a shipwreck and more from a buried treasure he entered the nether at 3 45 45 seconds slower than illumina but instead of playing fortress first he

Chose to play the bastion first i wonder why anyways after routing it and getting all of his trades he was off to the fortress at just under 6 minutes at this point in the run illumina is entering his bastion but not long after tln finds a fortress and enters at just over 7

Minutes in some absurd stroke of luck he runs into six stray blazes four of which drop soon after he ran into a group of three with one more dropping giving him five blaze rods before he even made it to the blaze spawner once at the blaze

Spawner he got almost no spawns but the one that did spawn dropped a rod and he was out of the nether at about 9 10 40 seconds slower than illumina now tln didn’t have ocean travel but his stronghold was significantly closer than illumina’s still the power of an ocean

Exposed portal room is unreal and illumina was in the end 13 seconds before tln quite literally the entire run was gonna come down to the perch because he needed a faster one than illumina’s at 13 30 the dragon perch but he was unable to kill it with 5 beds no

Worries though because four axe blows later the dragon was dead and his final time was 1352 now keep in mind that this run hasn’t been retimed so it’s quite likely that the actual time was more like 1350 hold on a second did you catch that i just said that a world record run

Hasn’t been retimed why on earth would that be well sit around the campfire and let me tell you a story of how tln absolutely [ __ ] shattered his own world record the day after getting it which was also the day after illumina got his actually i already made a video

About this exact event but i’ll still briefly go over the run much like his last run tln got iron from a shipwreck and way more iron from the buried treasure he was in the nether at 3 20 and he was immediately able to see a bastion and a fortress he went to the

Bastion first and was out of it at 6 20. funnily enough if the piglens hadn’t given him enough fire resistance potions to tranquilize a medium-sized horse he would have been out way sooner but in this run the fortress is also way closer after pearling to the spawner he killed

Blazes until he had six rods and left the nether at almost exactly the same pace as his last run the only difference is that when he threw two eyes of ender in order to gauge how far away the stronghold was the second eye throat changed angles by 30 degrees telling him

That he was basically on top of the stronghold he entered the end at 11 18 and with the guitar solo from free bird by leonard skynyrd playing he was prepared to kill the dragon what he wasn’t expecting was one of the fastest dragon perches ever after landing a 5

Bed 1 cycle he claimed the world record again but this time it wasn’t going to get beaten so easily also i don’t know if you remember but earlier in the video i mentioned that it took nearly 6 months to break the 14 minute barrier and here

Tln was breaking the 13 minute one in two days at the end of the day minecraft speedrunners just want to see each other succeed and i’m sure illumina is no different but having your world record broken the day after you get it then the same person shattering that record the

Next day is quite unfortunate to say the least let’s skip forward a bit specifically to april 19th 2020 this was the day when brentilda got the first and only sub 10 minute run and at the time nobody really knew how hard this would be to beat well

It wouldn’t take too long to find out because after multiple months of nobody even getting a sub 11 it appeared to be the magnum opus of minecraft 1.16 rsg there are a few things that you need to know about this run and one of them is that brentilda paused for over 90

Seconds at the time you were allowed to pause like that but having an in-game time of 936 and a real-time attack of 1109 brought some debate amongst the minecraft speedrun community as to whether igt or rta matters more in terms of the leaderboards igt is what matters

But having the rta world record was no small feat the thing is that brentilda’s run was so good that he had the rta world record as well during the run rentilda entered the end at around 8 20 after using a strategy called divine travel to go from the nether directly to

The room next to the portal room from entering the end the dragon purge speed basically comes down to rng for the longest time nobody had been able to enter the end faster than 820 or beat the rta world record but that would all change on the day of august 26 2021 who

Would achieve this well illumina of course so let’s take a look at how he did this this run starts unlike any run i’ve talked about in this video with a maples buried treasure what is a maples buried treasure you probably just said to your screen well essentially by using

The pie chart you can know if you’re in a chunk with a buried treasure on top of that buried treasures always spawn at the 9 9 chunk coordinates so by knowing the chunk you can find the treasure if you’re looking for a more in-depth explanation i suggest watching talking

Mime’s video which will be linked in the description anyways the buried treasure has eight iron three diamonds gold and some food on the island where he spawned there was also a lava pool so after getting wood and crafting tools he was able to enter the nether at 2 25. since

Illumina is using f3 in this run he is able to pinpoint the location of a bastion and begins to head in the direction on the way he runs into a fortress which is an extremely good sign of a fashion this fortress however is in a soul sand valley meaning that a lot of

Mobs will spawn in a luminous fashion he plays the fortress first big [ __ ] every blaze fight giving no [ __ ] while effortlessly dodging fireballs and fending off wither skeletons not only that because his blaze rod drop rates were exceptional and as he goes out of the concealed area the fortress tada the

Bastion at exactly 4 20 he got his final blaze rod insert funny joke and the bastion was a housing type which is arguably the best type but definitely the most consistent for getting trades by breaking a chest he is able to aggro piglens and they chase him to where the

Gold is after trading for a bit he gets everything that he needs and since he is already at good coordinates he is able to exit the nether at 609 which is an absolutely ridiculous pace unfortunately he spawns in a cave but fortunately he is not too far from the surface and just

Digs up he throws his first eye of ender at 6 51 and after traveling in its direction he hits a large ocean wanna guess what happens next if you guessed that he paused the run to make a viral tick-tock dance about him being on world record pace you wouldn’t be correct

Because he actually finds an ocean exposed stronghold this stronghold also happened to be very linear so he was able to find the porter room fairly quickly at 7 50 he enters the end becoming the first person to enter sub brentilda and having a legitimate shot at the seemingly impenetrable world

Record unfortunately this isn’t the world record so here’s a sad time left of the time ticking away finally at 10 40 the dragon perched and he pulled off a very clean one cycle his rta was 1103 which finally dethroned brentilda’s 1109 record on top of that

This run was also the second ever sub 11 minute igt by all accounts this run is insane i’d argue that this run alone has redefined how players look at 1.16 rsg and boosted morale by a [ __ ] ton after not a single person breaking brentilla’s igt or rta world record for over 4

Months this run is like a breath of fresh air but it doesn’t end there because the illumina curse struck again two days later not only was this run a brand new rta world record but it happened during something known as the k4 hour challenge basically it’s a challenge hosted by speedrunner k4 where

People try to beat as many runs as possible in a four hour time span being that runners are just trying to beat as many as possible rather than beating the game as fast as possible resets are more sparse and a normal time for a run during this challenge would be around

Like 20 to 25 minutes in other words hafik 1337 beat the rta world record without even necessarily attempting to let’s take a look at the run he spawns on an island nearby a shipwreck and some conveniently placed dolphins help him glide over to it the ship contained

Plenty of iron and food and nearby was a magmarvin which hafik would use to enter the nether his nether spawn was right next to the fortress and similar to illumina he played fortress first after going 7 for 10 on blaze rods he uses his

F3 to find a bastion and it turns out to be a stables by far the fastest one with really good rng the biggest concern with the route he took is not getting enough obsidian but top chests have him covered i mean holy [ __ ] 30 obsidian anyways after getting all of his pearls which

Took a bit of time he exits the nether at 7 53 much slower pace than illumina however he doesn’t spawn underground rather he spawns over an ocean and want to guess what’s poking out very close by the porta room of the stronghold hoffak entered the end at 8 47 about a minute

Slower than illumina but illumina got a bad dragon perch with relatively decent one he would easily beat the rta world record well this time the dragon was more favorable and after baiting the perch it actually perched at 1024 and as a wise man once said enjoy the one cycle holy [ __ ]

The final rta time was 10 45 and the igt was 1036 making hofik the first person to ever get within one minute of the igt world record so far i’ve analyzed how illumina held a world record for three seconds one day and two days but is he

Really that unlucky or was it inevitable i think we can all agree that the bennex vs illumina 1.14 world record was super unlucky but what about the 1353 well in order for me to answer that question you need to understand what was going on in the minecraft speedrun community at that

Time using f3 to locate bastions was something that was publicly released by k4 on february 15th a week before luminous run it would be an understatement to say that this discovery that was hiding in plain sight changed everything runners were able to reset way more efficiently knowing

Whether there was a bastion or not and finding a bastion no longer was a daunting task in my opinion that world record was never gonna stick for very long if not for a two-letter name the blazer 97 would have beaten it four days after the run happened and a month after

It would have been 6th place it is however pretty unlucky that he got a world record while so much change was going on in the category but that’s a completely different discussion so what about the 1103 rta world record well i think it’s a very similar story to what

Happened with the 1353 because new strategies are starting to get used like forcing 20 aubie from a bastion so the option for perfect travel is available granted hafik didn’t use perfect travel but still many people have entered the portal room at low 9 minutes only to not

Have enough eyes of ender so eventually someone had to get lucky enough i will however acknowledge that getting a three minute perch was very unlucky also i think it’s very telling that in this video i just went over a fraction of the world records that illumina has set most

People won’t ever get a world record much less have three of them beaten right after acquiring them anyways this is the longest commentary video i’ve ever made and my voice is starting to get tired so i hope you enjoyed this video eat your vegetables and have a great day