| “ |
|
„ | |
| — Jens Bergensten[1] |
Phantoms are flying common undead hostile mobs that attack players who haven't slept in over three in-game days.
Spawning
Phantoms spawn in the Overworld at night, or at any time during a thunderstorm; high above players that have not slept for at least 3 days. Phantoms will spawn more often the longer a player has gone without sleep.
For phantoms to successfully spawn, the player in question must be above sea level and not have a block above its head which blocks light in any way (for example leaves won't work as they have a light opacity of 2,[verify] but glass will work as its light opacity is 0).
Once the conditions are right, a pack of 1–4 phantoms attempts to spawn 20–34 blocks above the player, and off to the side by up to a taxicab distance of 9 blocks, every 1–2 minutes. The chance of a successful spawn is x-3⁄x, where x is the number of nights since the player has slept, which comes to a 1⁄4 chance on day 4, a 2⁄5 chance on day 5, a 3⁄6 on day 6, and so on.
Phantoms are counted towards the hostile mob cap, but don't respect it when spawning. Their spawning mechanic is based on the location of players in the world, not by randomly choosing a block near the players like regular mob spawning.
Drops
Phantoms drop 0–1 phantom membrane when killed by the player, which can be increased with the Looting enchantment.
Behavior
A Phantom swooping at the player.
When idle, phantoms will fly around in a circle at a constant y-elevation, leaving a trail of gray smoke while doing so. They have a quite large search radius, and will occasionally either swoop down or up quickly to attack their victim. If stopped or hurt during this action, the phantom will retreat back to its original elevation. When idle over water, the phantom will sometimes swoop into the water and will die as it is not pushed back up.
Phantoms are able to move through water at the same speed as they do normally.
When under the Invisibility effect, the phantom's body will disappear, but its eyes and smoke particles will still be visible.
Phantoms will burn in sunlight. Like other undead mobs, they are harmed by the Instant Health effect, healed by the Instant Damage effect, and immune to the Poison and Regeneration effects.
Data values
Phantoms have entity data associated with them that contain various properties of the mob. Their entity ID is phantom.
- Entity data
- Tags common to all entities
- Tags common to all mobs
- AX: The phantom, when not actively attacking, attempts to circle around X,Y,Z =
AX,AY,AZ. Appears to reset to a point above the target player every time the phantom flies up after a swoop. Set to spawn location if not specified. - AY: See
AX. - AZ: See
AX. - Size: The size of the phantom. Ranges from
0to64, similar to slimes. Unlike slimes, phantoms always have a constant 20
× 10 HP, and deal 6

+Sizedamage. Naturally spawned phantoms are always size 0.
Advancements
| Icon | Advancement | In-game description | Parent | Actual requirements (if different) | Resource location |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
![]() | Adventure | Adventure, exploration and combat | — | Kill any entity, or be killed by any entity. | adventure/root
|
![]() | Monster Hunter | Kill any hostile monster | Adventure | Kill one of these 34 mobs:
| adventure/kill_a_mob
|
![]() | Monsters Hunted | Kill one of every hostile monster | Monster Hunter | Kill each of these 34 mobs:
| adventure/kill_all_mobs
|
History
| release | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| November 18, 2017 | The Phantom (back then only known as Mob B and The Monster of the Night Skies) wins the vote at MineCon Earth. | ||||
| upcoming | |||||
| 1.13 | 18w07a | File:Phantom 18w07a-18w10a.pngAdded phantoms. They dropped 1-4 leather as a placeholder drop. | |||
| 18w09a | No longer spawn in the End. | ||||
| Will now despawn at daytime. | |||||
| 18w10a | |||||
| 18w10c | Now considered undead. | ||||
| 18w10d | Now burn in sunlight. | ||||
| Will no longer despawn at daytime. | |||||
| 18w14a | Now drops Phantom membrane, instead of leather. | ||||
| 18w19a | Animation changed to have the wings flap more quicker and smoother. | ||||
Issues
Issues relating to "Phantom" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.
Trivia
- Phantoms have a
Sizetag, which determines the size of the mob. - The phantom was added into the game as as result of winning the MineCon Earth mob Twitter poll as "Mob B".
- Phantoms are currently the fastest non-boss mob in the game, traveling at speeds of up to 20.83 blocks per second.
- At one point before the release of 18w10a, the phantom texture was made red, but it was decided that it appeared too much like a nether mob.[1]
- The phantom was originally going to have a mouth, like the sketch shown during MineCon Earth, but it was eventually scrapped because "it looked so much like a muppet".[1]
Gallery
- MineCon2017MobB.jpg
Original sketch of a phantom. The models of the phantom in Minecraft eventually had their bodies simplified and their mouths removed.
A phantom flying high in the air. You can see smoke particles beside each of its wings. Model is shown as of 18w07a.
The phantom's texture and model as of 18w10a.
References
- ↑ a b c "Meet the Phantom" – Minecraft.net, March 12, 2018






