Ultra Hardcore

Ultra Hardcore, or UHC, is a Minecraft game mode created by VintageBeef, and was first played by the Mindcrack group. In the game, players do not naturally regenerate health by having a full hunger bar and if a player dies, they are out of the game. All members of the Mindcrack group have participated in at least one season of UHC. There have been multiple guests play as well, with a total of 22 official MindCrack seasons so far. This article will mainly focus on Mindcrack's Ultra Hardcore series.

The Mod
Seasons 1-11 of the Mindcrack Ultra Hardcore had a mod called xxxHardcorexxx which was created by SBK_x_SiiLeNcE (Jack Beardmore), which disabled natural health regeneration. Ghasts dropped Gold Ingots instead of Ghast Tears making Regeneration potions impossible to make. The only way to regenerate health, therefore, is by making Golden Apples and Health Potions. However, as Golden Apples only required 1 gold ingot back then (8 golden nuggets), the crafting recipe was made more expensive and harder by changing the nuggets to ingots. Health Potions are brewed with Glistering Melons and they are made with a melon and a gold nugget. Again, to make this harder, the nugget was changed to a block of gold. Notch (Enchanted Golden) Apples required Blocks of Gold instead of Gold Ingots. Strength II potions were still able to be made, but was banned.

Vanilla
From Season 12 onwards, vanilla minecraft was used. This was achieved by using the new crafting recipes for Glistering Melons (8 golden nuggets and a melon), Golden Apples (8 gold ingots and an apple) and Notch Apples (8 gold blocks and an apple). The following command was used to stop natural health regeneration: /gamerule naturalRegeneration false Strength II potions are still banned, but as it is vanilla minecraft, there is no possible way to have ghosts drop gold instead of ghast tears. Therefore, Regeneration potions were added to the banned list. Team colours were now supported as well as randomly generated spawns with the new command: /spreadplayers

Basic Rules
Players are divided into equal teams with the amount of players in a team decided beforehand. In Solo or Free-For-All (FFA) UHCs, each player is classed as a team and the teams are of a size of 1. Teams start the game together and each team works together to be the last team standing. A player cannot naturally regenerate health (regenerate health on >18 hunger points), so the only way for a player to regenerate are golden apples, Notch apples and health potions. UHC is played like normal survival mode with a normal day-night cycle and the difficulty is set to normal (originally hard). There is a world border to contain players within a predefined area in the world If a player is killed, they are eliminated from the game. If a team has all players eliminated, that team is eliminated. The last team left standing wins the game.

Special Rules
Sometimes, seasons of UHC have special rules that differ from the basic rules and sometimes contradict them.

Seasons 1 and 2
In Seasons 1 and 2, there was only 1 team competing, so there was no PvP aspect. Instead, the team won if they defeated the Ender Dragon.

Season 4
In Season 4, if a team completed the victory monument, they would automatically win the game. Being the last team standing would also grant victory. The victory monument was not completed.

Season 9
In Season 9, the only way to win the season was to defeat the Ender Dragon, like in Seasons 1 and 2.

Season 11
Season 11 was an "eternal day" season, having the time set at noon the whole match, meaning that it was permanently day.

Season 12
In Season 12, underground staircases were not allowed and instead, players must find caves.

Season 14
Season 14 was the first season to use the Mumble plugin. Players communicated with other players by being near them, not through Skype. Other teams may be heard if close enough and teams may not be able to communicate with each other if they were too far away. The /tell command was banned.

Season 16
In Season 16, the world border was not static, but shrunk as the game progressed. This is due to the new /worldborder command introduced in 1.8. This season was an "eternal day" season.

Season 17
Season 17 was an "eternal day" season.

Season 18
Season 18 was an "eternal day" season, but the sun was set at dusk, most likely a cosmetic effect. Guude referred to the sun as being "there." Players also may not craft enchanting tables. To obtain them, they must kill another player.

Season 19
Season 19 used the Mumble plugin. Teams started separately from other teammates and find their teammates to work together.

Season 20
In Season 20, teams had to kill the Ender Dragon to win the game. This was also the first time a team with a different amount of players was used, with Arkas being alone. Arkas joined the first team he met.

Season 21
In Season 21, teams were not decided before the game started, but during the game. If a lone player met up with another lone player, they would form a team. However, once a player met another player, more players are not allowed on their team. This means that players could be alone when they die, as happened to 3 players.

Season 22
Season 22 had a team with a different number of people. Team Survivor only had 2 people in it while the other teams had 3 people. That team was not allowed to join other teams, unlike Season 20.

Season 23
In Season 23, there was a shrinking world border like in Season 16.

Season 24
In Season 24, there was a shrinking world border and used the "Miner's Delight" custom world generation and dungeon generation was set to the maximum.

Season 25
In Season 25, players must play with the autojump feature enabled. The only way to win this season was to kill the Ender Dragon, like Seasons 1, 2, 9 and 19.

ForTheKids, ForTheKidsTwo, ForTheKidsThree
In all ForTheKids UHCs (1, 2, 3), players receive gifts that will help them in the game by people donating to the Extra Life charity.

Portal Trapping
Following the controversial ending of Season 19, a rule has been added to UHC. Portal trapping (placing lava around a nether portal to kill the player) has been banned since Season 19, as the Mindcrack group says it results in boring content and unsatisfying kills.

Trivia

 * Guude and W92Baj have participated in every season of UHC
 * PauseUnpause has participated in every season, with the exception of Season 8
 * VintageBeef has also participated in every season, with Season 14 as the only exception


 * Each time PauseUnpause has worn his UHC camouflage skin, he has died in a double kill (6, 7) or won the season (5, 9, 10)
 * just_defy and ShreeyamGFX are the only participants to have also played in a Fan Server UHC
 * Pyro_0 is the only active member of the server to have always died in PvP
 * Etho is the only former/inactive member of the server to have always died in PvP
 * Dinnerbone, Grumm, Lorgon111, Bacon_Donut, and wyld have also only died in PvP
 * SethBling, BlameTC and paulsoaresjr's only PvE death was from the EnderDragon


 * CaptainSparklez, just_defy and OldManWillakers have never died to PvP
 * Out of these five, just_defy is the only one to participate in more than one season


 * OldManWillakers is the only participant who has never died in UHC
 * mcgamer (S6), OldManWillakers (S13), Arkas (S14), and oldGanon (S16) are the only participants to win in their first season
 * OldManWillakers and oldGanon are the only guests to win their first season


 * PauseUnpause has the record for the most number of kills in one season, with 7 (S14)
 * Etho (S8) and SethBling (S13) are tied for second most kills with 6 in a season


 * oldGanon and OldManWillakers are the only players to have a kill in every season they have participated in
 * kurtmac is the only person to complete a season without taking damage, in Season 9
 * This feat was not met with victory, as the win condition was to kill the Ender Dragon


 * Nebris is the only player to win 5 seasons in a row
 * Nebris (5) and Vechs (4) are the only players to win more than 2 UHCs in a row. Nebris's streak has stopped at 5 while Vechs's streak is currently at 4 (Vechs missed S23)


 * Guude is the only player to win a free-for-all Season without killing anyone (S3)
 * Excluding Ender Dragon seasons, just_defy (S7) and BlameTC (S12) are the only players to win a team-based season without killing anyone and being alive when victory was achieved
 * Mhykol is the only active member of the server to have never killed anyone in UHC
 * However, he did get a kill in #ForTheKidsTwo after killing Sevadus


 * Season 16 has the most number of player-related deaths, with 22
 * Season 9 has the least number of player-related deaths, with 1
 * This season is also the season with the most number of non-player-related deaths, with 9


 * Pakratt0013 has died first in UHC the most, with 4 instances in Seasons 5, 9, 12, and 13.
 * VintageBeef is a close second, having died first, with 3 instances in Seasons 4, 7 and 16.


 * In Season 7, VintageBeef was the last at full health and died first, the only instance of this happening ever.
 * The longest it took for the first death in a UHC season was in Season 22, which took approximately 123 minutes
 * The shortest it took for the first death in a UHC season was in Season 11, which took approximately 6 minutes


 * The most deaths in a single UHC episode goes to Season 23, Episode 5 with 11 deaths.
 * Etho has been killed by PauseUnpause 6 times (Season 3, 5, 6, 10, 13 and 15) making it the most death by the same person
 * The mob that has caused the most deaths is a skeleton, with 16.
 * The highest number of two players paired up in the same team is 9: PauseUnpause and VintageBeef (Season 1, 2, 4, 4b, 7, 9, 13, 16 and 20).
 * There have been 50 people who have participated in Mindcrack UHC
 * Of these, 17 are guests (AntVenom, Bacon_Donut, brentcopeland, BlueBayou, CaptainSparklez, Dinnerbone, DireDwarf, GreatScottLP, Grumm, JL2579, JustVan, Lorgon111, oldGanon, OldManWillakers, Searge, SuperJohan2000, SynHD, and wyld).


 * Zisteau, AnderZEL, adlingtont, generikb, Millbee, paulsoaresjr, AvidyaZEN, Shreeyam, JL2579, Grumm, Aureylian, Lorgon111, CaptainSparklez, and Sevadus are the only participants to have never won a UHC
 * Season 10 is the longest season which took 289 minutes and 14 seconds.
 * Season 4 is the shortest season which took 74 minutes and 18 seconds.
 * Seasons 1, 2, 9 and 19 are the only seasons where at least one member of each team traveled to the Nether.
 * This was expected, as Blaze Powder was needed to access the End in Seasons 1, 2 and 9.
 * While it was also a requirement for Season 20, only 4 of the 5 teams went into the Nether, as Team Pottymouth believed that the requirements for the portal were player heads and they were killed prior to acknowledging their mistake.
 * Season 14, Season 15, Season 17 and Season 22 each have 3 teams visiting the Nether, the most without having the Nether being a requirement to win.
 * While there were only 2 teams in Season 19, a total of 11 players entered the Nether at some point.


 * BlameTC was in the final battle 5 times in a row (Seasons 11-15), making it the biggest number of times in a row
 * PauseUnpause has been in the final battle 8 times (Seasons 2, 4, 5, 9, 10, 12, 14, #ForTheKids and 18)


 * The most people in a UHC at once was in Season 16, with 24 people in 8 teams of 3
 * Originally, Season 22 was going to have 24 people in 8 teams of 3 but Arkas was forced to drop out last minute due to Internet issues.


 * Guude, W92Baj, Pakratt0013, BlameTC, Vechs and OMGchad are the only participants who haven't missed a UHC, starting from the first Mindcrack UHC they took part in
 * If his appearance as a guest in S9 and S12 is excluded, SethBling has also participated consecutively since his first UHC as a member of Mindcrack, UHC13


 * SuperMCGamer is the only Mindcracker to have been paired up with a Mojang employee more than once (Dinnerbone in Seasons 13 and 16)
 * Nebris is the first person to craft and use a Notch Apple in UHC (S17)
 * Pakratt0013 was the second (S21)


 * Nebris is the first person to have ever used an Ender Pearl to teleport in Mindcrack UHC (S17)
 * Since then, AnderZEL (S19, S21), Nebris (S21) and Vechs (S22) have used Ender Pearls


 * Vechs is the only person to have earned the "When Pigs Fly" achievement in UHC (S17)
 * Nebris (S15) and Arkas (S20) are the only people to get the "Overkill" achievement
 * Mindcrack UHC seasons 4a, 8, and 11 are the only seasons to have at least one death in each episode.
 * BlameTC has been Iron Man the most times, 4 times (seasons 10, 13, 18 and 19).
 * Pakratt0013 is the only one who was Iron Man without footage of the season (S22)
 * His Iron Man status was confirmed by himself on the subreddit post of the episode


 * Guude is the only player to have ever been killed by a Ghast (S1 and 5)
 * Docm77 is the only player to have ever taken damage from, and be killed by, a Zombie Pigman (S9)


 * Zisteau, just_defy, adlingtont, Dinnerbone, Shreeyam, Grumm, and Lorgon111 are the only participants to have never gone to the Nether
 * Zisteau (S6) and Guude (S17) are the only players to have been found by another player while away from their computer
 * Zisteau is the only player to have ever taken damage while away from their computer


 * PauseUnpause (S7, 10, 14, 16), Zisteau (S12), SethBling (S12), Nebris (S7 and 18), Guude (S14), AvidyaZEN (S14), OMGchad (S21) and Vechs (S21) are the only ones to take out an entire team
 * Guude has been the last one standing on his team the most (S4, 4b, 12, 13, 14, 16, 18, 21)
 * Guude, PauseUnpause, VintageBeef, W92Baj (S9), SethBling, BlameTC (S12), PauseUnpause, Arkas (S14) and Vechs, Sethbling, OMGchad(S22) are the only teams that have won the season without losing a team member.
 * SethBling and oldGanon are the only players who were the most deadly every time they won.
 * SethBling is the only one to achieve this feat and who has won multiple times.
 * Both players have also shared the most deadly title with at least another player in one of those seasons


 * Seasons 16, 20, and 21 had no PvE deaths