Raid Farm Design: Infinite Emeralds and Totems

Raid farms are among the most efficient automated resource generators in Minecraft, providing a continuous flow of valuable items like emeralds, Totems of Undying, enchanted books, and other rare loot. When expertly built, they become virtually infinite sources—transforming late-game resource independence and enabling safer exploration and combat. This guide covers advanced principles and best practices to maximize efficiency, safety, and resource yield, ensuring your farm is both effective and resilient.

Prerequisites

Proper preparation is essential for a successful, safe, and efficient raid farm. Investing time upfront in planning and sourcing key components prevents costly mistakes and streamlines the construction process.

1. Locating a Pillager Outpost (Highly Recommended)

While raids can be triggered at any village with the Bad Omen effect, Pillager Outposts provide a predictable, steady source of Pillager Captains—key for acquiring Bad Omen efficiently.

• Optimal placement: Build your farm above or near an outpost (preferably within 200 blocks). This proximity allows you to trigger Bad Omen by killing captains at the outpost and then quickly travel to your farm, minimizing downtime.
• Outpost detection: Use Cartographer villagers to trade for Woodland Explorer Maps, which can reveal outposts. Alternatively, scout manually in plains, deserts, savannas, taigas, snowy biomes, or mountain ranges, where outposts frequently generate.

2. Acquiring and Transporting the Villager

A single villager acts as the raid's bait and the core of your raid target.

• Establish a secure holding cell: Protect the villager with glass or solid blocks to prevent stray arrows, Vex attacks, or Ravager damage.
• Link to a valid village: The villager must be linked to a bed within the farm structure to establish a recognized village center (indicated by green particles). This involves placing a bed near the villager, then breaking and replacing it if needed.
• Transport techniques:
  • Boat on Lead: Effective over land or ice, minimizing transport damage.
  • Minecart and Rails: Reliable but resource-intensive.
  • Water Streams & Bubble Columns: Use soul sand elevators and water flows for vertical movement.
  • Temporary scaffolding: Useful but laborious.

Transporting villagers high into the sky (often 150+ blocks) isolates spawns and simplifies raid management.

3. Materials and Construction Components

A well-constructed raid farm requires high-quality, durable materials:

• Solid Blocks: Cobblestone, stone, deepslate, or similarly durable blocks for spawn platforms and structural framing. Expect 15–20 stacks or more depending on size.
• Glass: Critical for containment, visibility, and preventing unwanted mob spawns. Use several stacks.
• Slabs (bottom slabs): Essential for spawn-proofing pathways and preventing mobs from spawning where they shouldn’t.
• Water Buckets: 4–8 for mob transportation channels and spawn manipulation.
• Lava Bucket: For efficient mob killing; placed carefully to avoid destroying loot.
• Hoppers & Chests: 10–20 hoppers feeding into storage chests for loot collection.
• Signs & Fence Gates: To hold water and control mob flow; signs are cost-effective and easy to place in bulk.
• Non-spawnable blocks (leaves, slabs, glass): To spawn-proof the environment and prevent mob cap saturation from other mobs.
• Redstone components (optional): Pistons, observers, dispensers for automation, especially in advanced designs.
• Scaffolding or Dirt: For quick and safe access during construction.

Core Principles of a High-Efficiency Raid Farm

Understanding these principles allows you to adapt or troubleshoot any design effectively:

1. Controlled Spawn Environment

• Spawn Platforms: Elevated, dark, flat surfaces with minimal light to maximize raid mob spawning.
• Spawn Proofing: Surround the farm with non-spawnable blocks to prevent extraneous mobs from spawning outside the raid, ensuring maximum mob cap utilization for raid mobs.
• Light Management: Keep the spawn area dark while maintaining well-lit pathways for the player and villagers to prevent unwanted mob spawns elsewhere.

2. Maximizing Spawn Rates

• High, Isolated Platforms: Situate spawn areas high in the sky (150+ blocks) to prevent other mobs from spawning, as they will be limited by the mob cap.
• Large Spawn Areas: Larger platforms increase spawn probability; typically, a radius of at least 20 blocks around the villager is recommended.
• Efficient Water Channels: Use water to funnel spawned mobs into the kill chamber—precise placement ensures minimal mob escape and maximum flow.

3. Effective Mob Transport and Control

• Water Flows & Signs: Use water streams with signs or fence gates to direct mobs into drop chambers or trap zones.
• Drop Kill Chambers: Design drop heights of 23+ blocks for one-hit kills, or use lava or tridents for faster, more controlled kills with loot preservation.
• Alternative Kill Methods: Lava blades, suffocation, or trapdoors can be used, but ensure loot is retrievable and mobs are killed reliably.

4. Loot Collection and Storage

• Hopper Networks: Strategically place hoppers beneath the kill chamber to funnel loot into chests.
• Sorting Systems: Implement item sorters for organizing emeralds, totems, and other valuable loot.
• Loot Efficiency: Minimize loot loss by ensuring drop chambers are sealed and loot is collected promptly.

Additional Tips for Optimization

• Design Variations: Explore stacking or multiple-village designs for increased spawn and kill rates.
• Automation: Incorporate redstone mechanisms for automatic Bad Omen acquisition, villager management, or loot collection.
• Safety Measures: Enclose the entire farm in a protected perimeter to prevent interference from other mobs or players.

Final Considerations

Building an efficient raid farm demands careful planning, precise execution, and ongoing maintenance. The investment pays off through endless emeralds, Totems, and loot, boosting your late-game capabilities and enabling new adventures with confidence.

Remember, an optimized farm is adaptable. Use these principles to tweak existing blueprints or innovate your own design to fit your specific biome, resource availability, and gameplay style. Mastery of raid farms elevates your Minecraft experience from resource gathering to strategic mastery.

Happy raiding and resource farming!