Minecraft speedrunning has skyrocketed in popularity recently, especially after former Minecraft speedrun world-record holder Dream saw immense growth in popularity over the course of 2020. However, after a very public cheating scandal, Dream's fastest run was removed from the leaderboard. While Dream has stated he will no longer be submitting his run times to speedrun.com, plenty of other larger creators continue to race for the fastest time possible.
In December of 2020, Dream had one of his speedrun records for the Minecraft 1.16+ any% glitchless category removed from the official leaderboards. The Minecraft Speedrun Team launched an investigation spanning several months into Dream's run, which was 15th place on the leaderboard at that time. The verdict claimed that Dream's luck with item drops was far beyond reasonable, and as such he must have tampered with the game's code to increase certain items' drop rates. While Dream still claims he did not cheat, the run remains removed from the leaderboards.
Dream may have put the life of speedrunning behind him, but there are still plenty of people vying for the number one spot. The Minecraft 1.16+ any% glitchless run is a very active category on speedrun.com with new records being set almost every week. That being said, here's who holds the world record at the time of writing.
Minecraft Speedrun World Record Holder
Twitch streamer reignex set a new record for the Minecraft 1.16+ any% glitchless category on January 30th, 2021. Reignex was able to beat the game in 14 minutes 10 seconds and 600 milliseconds. They are one of four speedrunners who has completed this category in less than 15 minutes, and they currently hold the record by a margin of 10 seconds. Cutting any more time off of this run would take immense luck, as getting lucky plays a major role in each run.
This run was also a part of the random seed category which means the runner has to generate a new Minecraft world every run. Instead of being able to map out their runs beforehand, the runner must act on instinct to beat the game as quickly as possible. Essentially, the player is attempting to beat a never-before-seen world every single run. The player also has to rely on mob drops and building generations, which is another factor of the run where luck plays a large role. This means that even players who are as good at Minecraft as Dream can spend several days trying to generate a seed that will net a good run.
With how active this Minecraft speedrun category is, it's possible that reignex won't hold the record for long. Watching the largest streamers on Twitch and YouTube compete to beat one another's times is just as entertaining as watching the top tier runners race for the world records. Runners like Tfue, Cizzors, and xQc are 100th or lower on the leaderboards, but the anticipation of who will take the content creator speedrun crown next is very exciting. With a speedrun category as dynamic as Minecraft 1.16+, it really is anyone's category to take.