I was reading someone’s MineBlr (a Tumblr Minecraft blog) and they were talking about how they were trying to get to the Nether as quickly as possible in a brand-new Minecraft survival mode game. Basically, it’s a Nether Speed Run.
There are lots of ways you can move as quickly as possible to get what you need to build a nether portal, but mostly what the speed run boils down to is whether you get lucky with finding diamonds once you dig down to the bottom of your world. The faster you find 3 diamonds, the faster you can build your diamond pickaxe. You’ll need it to mine obsidian, which forms the frame of a nether portal.
The first order of business is to gather some wood. I found some nearby oak trees and started punching away. I gathered enough wood this way to build a crafting table and a wooden axe, which I used to cut down more trees, but faster than with my weak-ass monkey fists.
Once I had enough wood, planks, and sticks, I started to make my other tools, like a shovel and pickaxe. Soon, it was time to start digging down.
Armed with my shovel and pickaxe, I started to dig my tunnel deep down underneath the island. The goal is to build a steep staircase tunnel that goes all the way to the bottom. There, I’ll begin my search for diamonds. If I’m lucky, I’ll find some coal, iron, lava, and water along the way. I’ll need all of those to make the remaining materials I need to build my Nether Portal.
Finally, I hit bottom. Now the search for diamonds begins.
And I found diamonds! Fortunately, there were enough of them to build a diamond pickaxe.
I got enough iron to make an iron bucket, which I’ll use to transport lava and water. By bringing them together, you can make obsidian, which is then mined using the diamond pickaxe.
I didn’t find any water underground, but made two quick trips to the surface to collect water in my iron bucket. Then I made an “endless” water well by emptying the buckets diagonally in a simple 2×2 well.
To make the obsidian, I carried a bucket of lava over to the water and emptied it just above one of the water blocks. The obsidian forms and then I was able to mine it with my diamond pickaxe. Once I had 10 blocks of obsidian, I was ready to make my portal.
Your nether portal needs to be in a 4×5 frame, but you don’t need the corner squares. So a “bare minimum” portal has 3 blocks on each side and 2 blocks to make the top and bottom.
You then light/activate the portal using Flint and Steel, but you can also light the portal with some lava and a flammable block, like wood. I already had some flint from shoveling gravel on the way down, so it was just as easy to craft the flint and steel and light it that way.
Then I stepped through into the Nether. All told, it took me 48 minutes to do!