Sculk Catalyst

A sculk catalyst is a block that converts blocks around it to blocks in the sculk family (except for more sculk catalysts) when a mob that drops experience dies nearby.

Obtaining

Natural generation

Sculk catalysts are generated within the deep dark biome.

Chest loot

Item	Structure	Container	Quantity	Chance
Java Edition
Sculk Catalyst	Ancient City	Chest	1–2	16.1%
Bedrock Edition
Sculk Catalyst	Ancient City	Chest	1–2	16.1%

Mob loot

A warden drops a single sculk catalyst upon death, unaffected by Looting.

Breaking

Sculk catalysts can be mined with any tool, but hoes are the quickest. It drops 5 experience and no item if mined without Silk Touch. It drops itself if mined with any Silk Touch tool.

Block	Sculk Catalyst
Hardness	3
Tool
Breaking time^[A]
Default	4.5
Wooden	2.25
Stone	1.15
Iron	0.75
Diamond	0.6
Netherite	0.5
Golden	0.4

↑ Times are for unenchanted tools as wielded by players with no status effects, measured in seconds. For more information, see Breaking § Speed.

Usage

If a mob dies near a sculk catalyst, it can cause a sculk bloom. The catalyst's texture will react, causing a blooming animation. The sculk bloom produces sculk blocks, sculk veins, and sculk shriekers. These blocks can be used as decoration or harvested for experience. The sculk bloom also produces sculk sensors, which are useful in redstone contraptions.

For more information, see Sculk Growth.

Light source

Sculk catalysts emit a light level of 6.

Sounds

Generic

Java Edition:

Subtitles	Source	Description	Resource location	Translation key	Volume	Pitch	Attenuation distance
Block broken	Blocks	Once the block has broken	`block.sculk_catalyst.break`	`subtitles.block.generic.break`	1.0	0.8	16
Block placed	Blocks	When the block is placed	`block.sculk_catalyst.place`	`subtitles.block.generic.place`	1.0	0.8	16
Block breaking	Blocks	While the block is in the process of being broken	`block.sculk_catalyst.hit`	`subtitles.block.generic.hit`	0.25	0.5	16
None^{[sound 1]}	Blocks	Falling on the block with fall damage	`block.sculk_catalyst.fall`	None^{[sound 1]}	0.5	0.75	16
Footsteps	Blocks	Walking on the block	`block.sculk_catalyst.step`	`subtitles.block.generic.footsteps`	0.15	1.0	16

↑ ^a ^b MC-177082

Bedrock Edition:

Source	Description	Resource location	Volume	Pitch
Blocks	Once the block has broken	`break.sculk_catalyst`	1.0	0.8-1.0
Blocks	When the block is placed	`break.sculk_catalyst`	1.0	0.8-1.0
Blocks	While the block is in the process of being broken	`hit.sculk_catalyst`	0.3	0.5
Friendly Creatures	Falling on the block with fall damage	`step.sculk_catalyst`	0.4	1.0
Friendly Creatures	Walking on the block	`step.sculk_catalyst`	0.17	1.0
Friendly Creatures	Jumping from the block	`step.sculk_catalyst`	0.12	1.0
Friendly Creatures	Falling on the block without fall damage	`step.sculk_catalyst`	0.14	1.0

Unique

Java Edition:

Sound	Subtitles	Source	Description	Resource location	Translation key	Volume	Pitch	Attenuation distance
	Sculk Catalyst blooms	Blocks	When a mob is killed near a sculk catalyst	`block.sculk_catalyst.bloom`	`subtitles.block.sculk_catalyst.bloom`	0.5	0.6-1.0	12

Bedrock Edition:

Sound	Source	Description	Resource location	Volume	Pitch
	Blocks	When a mob is killed near a sculk catalyst	`bloom.sculk_catalyst`	2.0	0.6-1.0

Data values

ID

Java Edition:

Name	Identifier	Form	Translation key
Sculk Catalyst	`sculk_catalyst`	Block & Item	`block.minecraft.sculk_catalyst`

Name	Identifier
Block entity	`sculk_catalyst`

Bedrock Edition:

Name	Identifier	Numeric ID	Form	Item ID^{[i 1]}	Translation key
Sculk Catalyst	`sculk_catalyst`	`715`	Block & Giveable Item^{[i 2]}	Identical^{[i 3]}	`tile.sculk_catalyst.name`

↑ ID of block's direct item form, which is used in savegame files and addons.
↑ Available with /give command.
↑ The block's direct item form has the same id as the block.

Name	Savegame ID
Block entity	`SculkCatalyst`

Block states

Java Edition:

Name	Default value	Allowed values	Description
bloom	`false`	`false` `true`	Whether the sculk catalyst is actively spreading the sculk or not.

Bedrock Edition:

Name	Default value	Allowed values	Description
bloom	`0`	`0` `1`	Whether the sculk catalyst is actively spreading the sculk or not.

Block data

A sculk catalyst has a block entity associated with it that holds additional data about the block.

Java Edition:

Block entity data
- Tags common to all block entities
- cursors: List of charges associated with the sculk catalyst.
  - : A charge.
    - charge: How much power is in the charge.
    - pos: List of three integers representing the coordinates of the charge.
    - decay_delay: Does not relate to delay. Be 1 if the charge was spread from a sculk or sculk vein, 0 otherwise. The charge can spread to any block if this tag is 1. If it is 0, all the powers in the charge disappear when it spreads to a block not in sculk family.
    - update_delay: Delay in ticks until the charge begins to travel after being created.
    - facings: If the block to replace is an air or water, replace the block at its position with sculk vein, and store the facings of this sculk vein. If the charge is not at an air or water, or this tag is null, attempt to replace a block next to it with sculk vein. Can be any combination of north, south, east, west, up, down.

Bedrock Edition:

See Bedrock Edition level format/Block entity format.

Advancements

Icon	Advancement	In-game description	Parent	Actual requirements (if different)	Resource location
	It Spreads	Kill a mob near a Sculk Catalyst	Monster Hunter	Kill one of these 70 mobs near a sculk catalyst: Axolotl Bee Blaze Camel Cat Cave Spider Chicken Chicken Jockey Cod Cow Creeper Donkey Dolphin Drowned Elder Guardian Enderman Endermite Evoker Fox Frog Ghast Goat Glow Squid Guardian Hoglin Horse Husk Llama Magma Cube Mooshroom Ocelot Panda Parrot Phantom Pig Piglin Piglin Brute Pillager Polar Bear Pufferfish Rabbit Ravager Salmon Sheep Shulker Silverfish Skeleton Skeleton Horse Skeleton Horseman Slime Sniffer Stray Spider Spider Jockey Squid Strider Trader Llama Tropical Fish Turtle Vex Vindicator Warden Witch Wither Wither Skeleton Wolf Zoglin Zombie Zombie Villager Zombified Piglin Mobs that drop no experience are ignored for this advancement.	`adventure/kill_mob_near_sculk_catalyst`

History

Java Edition
October 3, 2020		Sculk catalysts are shown at Minecraft Live 2020.
November 13, 2020		The sculk catalyst has a new texture in a tweet from Brandon Pearce.
April 26, 2021		Kingbdogz states that sculk features aren't coming in 1.17.
October 16, 2021		Sculk features were delayed to 1.19.
October 16, 2021		New sculk catalyst functions were shown.
1.19	Deep Dark Experimental Snapshot 1	Added sculk catalysts.
	22w11a	Implemented sculk catalysts into normal snapshot.
	22w17a	Wardens now drop a single sculk catalyst upon death, making them renewable.
1.19.1	Pre-release 6	Sculk catalysts now drop five experience instead of 20.
Bedrock Edition
1.17.30	beta 1.17.30.22	"Sculk Catalyst" was mentioned in Bedrock Beta documentation.
1.17.30	beta 1.17.30.23	Sculk Catalyst textures were shown in internal Caves & Cliffs textures.
Vanilla Experiments (Experimental)	beta 1.18.0.22	Added sculk catalysts.
Wild Update (Experimental)	beta 1.18.10.21	Moved sculk catalysts to the "Wild Update" experimental toggle.
Wild Update (Experimental)	beta 1.18.30.22	Sculk catalysts were updated to match Java Edition's behavior.
1.19.0	beta 1.19.0.20	Sculk catalysts are now available without enabling experimental gameplay.
1.19.0	beta 1.19.0.28	Wardens now drop a single sculk catalyst upon death.
1.19.20	beta 1.19.20.23	Sculk catalysts now drop five experience instead of 20.

Issues

Issues relating to "Sculk Catalyst" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.

Gallery

Slicedlime "corrupting" a canyon into sculk block by using sculk catalyst and dying skeleton in his video.
Sculk charges appear on blocks when mobs' essence (recollected by sculk catalysts) travel on them.
A sculk catalyst generated in a wall.
The bottom texture of the sculk catalyst.
Lots of sculk from a catalyst.
Lots of sculk from a catalyst.
Lots of sculk from a catalyst.
Lots of sculk from a catalyst.

References

[breakingtimenote-1] Times are for unenchanted tools as wielded by players with no status effects, measured in seconds. For more information, see Breaking § Speed.

[bugMC-177082-2] MC-177082

[bedrock-item-id-3] ID of block's direct item form, which is used in savegame files and addons.

[bedrock-give-available-4] Available with /give command.

[bedrock-item-form-5] The block's direct item form has the same id as the block.

[A]

[sound 1]

[i 1]

[i 2]

[i 3]