Your first hour on a Skyblock server

The first hour on a Skyblock server decides whether you are still playing in a month. Here is a plan that avoids the usual dead ends.

Minutes 0 to 10: take the free stuff

You land on your own island. Click the NPC Rinn straight away: the storyline pays out rewards and sets up your first farms. Grab the starter kit from the portal at /spawn for diamond armour, food and blocks. Run /daily before you do anything else, because the streak only starts counting once you claim it.

Minutes 10 to 25: learn four commands

• /is go gets you home from anywhere.
• /travel opens every custom location.
• /shop buys gear, spawners, food and blocks.
• /sellgui sells: drag items in, they sell instantly at current price.

Two more worth knowing early: /ah is the auction house if you would rather set your own price, and /quests gives you five random daily quests that pay crate keys and value blocks for things you were going to do anyway.

Minutes 25 to 40: understand island value before you waste any

This is the part new players get wrong. Your island has two numbers. Weekly Growth is what you add this week and it is the only thing the leaderboard scores. Total Value is your permanent worth and it is what unlocks growth stages.

You bank value blocks through /island value. At the weekly reset on Sunday your weekly growth rolls into total value and resets. So value deposited on a Saturday counts for that week's board; value deposited on a Monday has a full week to compound.

Cheapest useful value blocks to start with: coal blocks at $2,000 and iron at $4,000. The serious ones come later, with honeycomb blocks at $10,000,000 and creaking hearts at $250,000,000.

Minutes 40 to 60: pick one gathering location

Do not spread yourself. Pick one of Weeping Woodlands, the Mineshafts or Pirates Bay and push its levels, because the rare drop rates improve at every single level. In the Woodlands the money per log runs from $3 at level 1 to $27 at level 9, and only levels 7 to 9 drop forest hearts at all.

The three mistakes that cost the most

1. Disbanding an island with items on it. /is disband wipes it permanently. If you are joining a friend, strip your island first.
2. Ignoring voting. Voting pays on daily milestones, not per vote, so doing one site is nearly pointless and doing all five pays $75,000, 3 gems and 15 minutes of flight.
3. Spreading across every location at once. Levels compound. Half finished ladders do not.

Ready to go deeper? Read the island upgrades guide next, then join at oraclepvp.net.