Minecraft speedrunner Dream had one of his records removed after an official verdict claims he was cheating to manipulate the game’s RNG.
Popular Minecraft speedrunner and content creator Dream has been stripped of a record after Minecraft Speedrunning Team concluded that his “astronomical luck” during runs was the result of changed game code. Dream continues to deny any tampering Minecraft’s code in his rebuttal, but the verdict still stands.
Dream’s rise in 2020 was unprecedented to say the least. From Dream’s 14 million YouTube subscribers, 12.5 million were won between January and November this year. This is due to the popularity of Dream’s original Minecraft Manhunt series, in which he tries to beat Minecraft as soon as possible while being hunted by friends. Each Minecraft Manhunt episode has more than 15 million views and features Dream outwitting his friends with insanely “lucky” maneuvers. While these videos are impressive, it is important to note that there is widespread speculation that the performance in these videos is scripted.
Before Minecraft Manhunt, Dream was known for holding multiple speed running world records Minecraft. However, the Minecraft Speedrunning team has concluded that Dream was cheating on his recent speedruns due to his “one in a thousand luckwhen acquiring rare items needed to complete the game in the time he did. The items in question are Ender Pearls, which are randomly obtained by barter with Piglins, and Blaze Rods, which can only be dropped by Blazes In a 14-Minecraft Speedrunning Team, a minute of video and a 29-page analysis PDF outlines how Dream’s so-called luck is far beyond attainable and far above all other speedrunners by a suspiciously large margin.
According to the analysis of six consecutive live streams, Dream managed to successfully trade gold bars for Ender Pearls 42 of the 262 Piglin barter traders. He also received 211 Blaze Rods after killing 305 Blazes. These results are significantly higher than Minecraft’s base odds, as Blazes have a 50% chance of dropping Blaze Rods when killed, and each Piglin trade has only a 5% chance of getting an Ender Pearl . The analysis article goes into detail on how unattainable this number is, with the team concluding that Dream’s Ender Pearl and Blaze Rod’s odds of luck are 1 in 177 billion and 1 in 113 billion, respectively. After an extensive analysis of Dream’s runs, the Minecraft Speedrunning Team stated that Dream must have tweaked his game in some way to accommodate the drop rates displayed in his runs.
My 1.16 run was just rejected after investigation because it was “too unlikely to verify”. A video was made by a main mod and Youtuber Geosquare where I used my name and clicked “Cheating Speedrunning” to get views easily. Definitely a response soon. Total BS!
– dream (@ dreamwastaken2) December 11, 2020
To clarify, my time of 1.15 (previous world record), 5th place has not been removed and is still verified. Only the 16th place 1.16 run could “not be verified”. I’ll make a video about it someday, but for now MCC tomorrow: D
– dream (@ dreamwastaken2) December 12, 2020
On Twitter and elsewhere, Dream still claims he was not cheating and claims the analysis video and paper is biased. He pointed to incorrect information from the analysis video, which the Minecraft Speedrunning Team has since corrected with the correct information in the description, but the verdict still stands. Dream also stated that this only affected his 16th place speedrun for Minecraft 1.16 and did not affect his run for 5th place Minecraft 1.15.
The most interesting part of the Minecraft Speedrun Team analysis video is the speculation as to why Dream would fake a speedrun. Dream has held and lost many world records in his fast paced career, but has openly disliked Minecraft 1.16 because of the RNG involved in runs. However, the question could also be asked why the official team would go behind DreamIt’s driven 16th place from two months ago, but it’s very possible the research took time to put together after it was tipped.
Sources: Minecraft Speedrunning Team, Dream Investigation Results, Dream
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