The sulfur cube is the mob that took over Minecraft Java Edition in the June 2026 drop (26.2), and it works like a rolling physics toy: hand it a block, it swallows it, and the block decides how it moves. Mojang’s patch notes list 12 sulfur cube archetypes in 26.2, and 26.4 Snapshot 6 added a 13th, the Cold Sulfur Cube. Snapshot 7, released November 3, adds Calcite blocks to the Slow Bouncy group and is described as the last batch of gameplay features for the upcoming 26.4 drop. This guide lists every archetype, what triggers it, and how to handle TNT cubes safely.
- How to use one: right-click a sulfur cube while holding a block. It absorbs the block, its AI switches off and it becomes a physical object you can punch and push.
- How to undo it: use Shears on the cube. The block comes out and the cube goes back to wandering and following you.
- Archetypes: 13 in total on current snapshots (12 in release 26.3, plus Cold in 26.4 Snapshot 6). Wood bounces fast, wool floats, ice slides, Magma burns, TNT explodes.
- Where they live: the Sulfur Caves biome, which generates underground in Java 26.2 and later.
- Edition: everything below comes from Mojang’s Java Edition patch notes. Bedrock details can differ and are not covered here.
- Checked: Nov 8, 2026, 16:01 UTC, against Mojang’s version manifest (latest release 26.3, latest snapshot 26.4 Snapshot 7).
Table of Contents
How do sulfur cubes work in Minecraft?
According to the 26.2 release notes, a sulfur cube is a cave mob with two modes. Left alone it hops around and, as the notes put it, looks for nearby block items to eat. It also follows a player who holds a block it can absorb. When you interact with it while holding a block, the cube absorbs that block and the second mode starts.
With a block inside, the cube is no longer a living mob in the usual sense. It takes no fall damage and no player damage, and you can punch it across the floor. Which block you gave it picks one of the archetypes below, and the archetype sets how fast it moves when hit, how much it bounces, how much it grinds against the ground and how much it slows down in the air.
| What you do | What happens (Java, per Mojang) |
|---|---|
| Interact while holding a block | The cube absorbs it, its AI is disabled and it takes the matching archetype |
| Use Shears on a loaded cube | Removes the absorbed block and re-enables the cube’s AI |
| Kill a cube | It splits into two smaller sulfur cubes |
| Feed a small cube a Slime Ball | It grows into a large cube |
| Use an empty Bucket on a large cube | Picks it up as a bucket item (a cube holding primed TNT cannot be picked up) |
| Put one in a Minecart | It can ride Minecarts, but cannot enter Boats |
| Use a Dispenser | Can insert and swap blocks, use Shears to remove the block, or spawn a cube from a bucket |
The notes list no breeding mechanic. New cubes come from splitting a killed cube, from small cubes grown with Slime Balls, or from a bucket. Pufferfish are not scared of sulfur cubes, which is a small detail the notes spell out. A Knockback enchantment on your weapon also knocks a sulfur cube back farther the higher the level (26.2 Pre-Release 4); our Minecraft enchantments list shows which weapons can take it.
Each absorbed block gives the cube a different archetype: wood, wool, ice and TNT here. AI-generated illustration
Minecraft sulfur cube archetypes: all 13 types
Mojang’s 26.2 notes describe each archetype by four traits: speed when hit, bounciness, ground friction and air drag, plus whether it floats. The table below keeps the notes’ own wording (slow, medium, fast, high, low). The “used when absorbing” column is Mojang’s description of the block group, not a full block list.
| Archetype | Speed | Bounce | Ground friction | Air drag | Floats | Used when absorbing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Regular | Medium | Medium | Medium | Low | Yes | Loose mineral and soil blocks |
| Bouncy | Fast | High | Medium | Low | Yes | Wooden blocks |
| Slow Bouncy | Slow | High | Medium | Medium | No | Stone-like blocks (Calcite sets since 26.4 Snapshot 7) |
| Slow Flat | Slow | Low | Medium | Medium | No | Metal blocks |
| Fast Flat | Fast | Low | Medium | Low | No | Organic blocks |
| Light | Slow | High | Medium | High | Yes | Wool blocks |
| Fast Sliding | Fast | None | Low | Low | No | Icy blocks (Packed Ice Bricks and Snow Bricks in 26.4) |
| Slow Sliding | Slow | None | Low | Low | No | Shroom blocks |
| High Resistance | Very slow | Low | High | Low | No | Soul Sand and Soul Soil |
| Sticky | As Fast Flat | None | Extremely high | As Fast Flat | No | Honeycomb Block |
| Explosive | As Regular | As Regular | As Regular | Slightly higher than Regular | As Regular | TNT |
| Hot | As Regular | As Regular | As Regular | As Regular | As Regular | Magma Block (damages entities on contact) |
| Cold (26.4 Snapshot 6) | As Fast Sliding | None | Low | Low | Yes | Blue Ice (freezes the water below it) |
Two notes on that table. First, the Slow Bouncy cube was made non-buoyant in 26.2 Snapshot 7, so the “Floats” entry follows the later change; the original release notes simply do not list it as buoyant either. Second, the notes describe Explosive, Hot and Cold as “same as” another archetype with one change, so those rows repeat that archetype’s traits. Mojang’s notes do not publish a complete block-by-block list, so if a block is not named above, test it in a creative world rather than assuming.
Which archetype should you pick? Our read of the numbers
Mojang does not rank the archetypes, so this part is our own reading of the stats above, not an official recommendation.
- Fastest push: Bouncy (wood), Fast Flat (organic blocks) and the Fast Sliding group (ice, Packed Ice Bricks, Snow Bricks) are the three “fast” archetypes. Sliding cubes have no bounce, so they stay on the ground.
- Staying put: High Resistance (Soul Sand) is “very slow” with high friction, and Sticky (Honeycomb Block) has extremely high ground friction and no bounce. Both suit a cube you want to leave where it is.
- Floating: Regular, Bouncy, Light and the new Cold cube are buoyant. The Cold cube is the only one that also changes the water: when it moves it replaces the water block below with a disk of Frosted Ice, much like the Frost Walker enchantment, as long as there is air above the water and it starts its move from the ground.
- Slow and bouncy for traps or arenas: Light and Slow Bouncy both pair “slow” with “high” bounciness.
Sulfur cube TNT: how the Explosive archetype works
Absorbing a TNT block gives the Explosive archetype and unlocks the “Uh Oh” Husbandry advancement. The 26.2 notes spell out the rules, and they are worth knowing before you test one next to your base:
- The absorbed TNT can be primed by Redstone, by fire sources (including a Dispenser with Flint and Steel), or by nearby explosions.
- Primed by fire or Redstone, it uses a 6 second fuse. Primed by another explosion, the fuse is random between 0.75 and 3 seconds.
- A cube with primed TNT cannot be picked up with a Bucket, and the primed TNT cannot be removed with Shears.
- When it explodes, no small sulfur cubes spawn.
Later fixes in the notes cover details such as Flint and Steel and fire charges making their sound when they ignite a TNT cube (26.4 Snapshot 5) and the block inside a cube being swappable while its TNT was about to explode (reported and fixed during 26.2 testing). Always test TNT cubes away from your builds, with a wall between you and the cube.
Test TNT cubes from behind cover: the fuse is 6 seconds when lit by fire or Redstone. AI-generated illustration
Hot cubes: Magma Block safety
The Hot archetype has the Regular movement traits but damages entities on contact. Since 26.2 Snapshot 8, cubes with a block inside are immune to damage from Magma Blocks, and from other sulfur cubes holding a Magma Block. The notes grant that immunity only to cubes with a block inside.
What 26.4 Snapshots 5, 6 and 7 changed for sulfur cubes
| Snapshot | Released (UTC) | Sulfur cube change |
|---|---|---|
| 26.4 Snapshot 5 | Oct 20, 2026 | Packed Ice Bricks and Chiseled Packed Ice belong to the Fast Sliding archetype |
| 26.4 Snapshot 6 | Oct 27, 2026 | New Cold Sulfur Cube (Blue Ice); Snow Bricks join Fast Sliding; new location_based_effects field for archetype data |
| 26.4 Snapshot 7 | Nov 3, 2026 | Calcite, Polished Calcite and Polished Calcite Bricks (with their slabs, stairs and walls) belong to the Slow Bouncy archetype |
Snapshot 7 also adds a music disc, “Flurry” by Hyper Potions, which can turn up in Igloo basement chests and gives a comparator output of 7 in a Jukebox. For the rest of the 26.4 drop (Ice Caves, the Frostbite, Brittle Ice and more), see our Minecraft 26.4 snapshots guide, which covers Snapshots 1 to 6. Mojang has not announced a 26.4 release date, and the version manifest shows no pre-release yet.
Sulfur Caves: where to find sulfur cubes
Sulfur cubes spawn in the Sulfur Caves biome, an underground biome with bands of sulfur and cinnabar. The notes say it also spawns Cave Spiders, so bring a way to deal with them. The biome generates sulfur pools containing Potent Sulfur, and Sulfur Springs generate above it. Since 26.4 Snapshot 1, upgrading a world from before Caves & Cliffs also generates sulfur caves below the old chunks. For seed picks for the 26.x worldgen, our best Minecraft seeds for 26.3 list is the place to start. Our Minecraft commands list covers the /give and /effect syntax if you are testing in creative.
Sulfur cube data packs: the archetype registry
Since 26.2, archetypes are data-driven. The release notes describe a minecraft:sulfur_cube_archetype registry whose entries load from data/<namespace>/sulfur_cube_archetype/<path>.json. Each entry can set:
items: an item tag with every item that gives this archetypebuoyant: whether the cube floatsexplosion(optional): fuse time, power and whether it causes firecontact_damage(optional): damage amount, damage type and attributionknockback_modifiers: horizontal and vertical knockback powersound_settings: hit and push sounds (hit and push sounds became optional in 26.4 Snapshot 4)
The notes also add item tags for each archetype, such as #sulfur_cube_archetype/bouncy and #sulfur_cube_archetype/slow_bouncy, plus #sulfur_cube_food (items a small cube can be fed) and #sulfur_cube_swallowable (items a large cube can hold). A minecraft:sulfur_cube_content data component stores the absorbed item, for example minecraft:sulfur_cube_content=green_wool. The data pack version is 126.0 as of 26.4 Snapshot 7. Snapshot formats change often, so check the current number before you ship a pack.
Common questions
Can you breed sulfur cubes?
Not according to Mojang’s notes. A killed cube splits into two small cubes, and small cubes grow into large ones when fed Slime Balls.
How do you get a sulfur cube bucket?
Use an empty Bucket on a large sulfur cube. A cube holding primed TNT cannot be picked up. Dispensers can spawn a cube back out of a bucket.
Does a sulfur cube take damage with a block inside?
It takes no fall damage and no player damage, and it is immune to the damage types in a Mojang-defined tag. Shearing the block out makes it a normal mob again.
Is the Cold Sulfur Cube in the full game yet?
Not in a full release as of Nov 8, 2026. It is in 26.4 snapshots only, and the latest release is Java 26.3.
Sources: Mojang’s Java Edition patch notes as published in the Minecraft Launcher: 26.2 (Chaos Cubed), 26.2 Snapshot 7, 26.2 Snapshot 8, 26.2 Pre-Release 4, 26.4 Snapshot 5, Snapshot 6 and Snapshot 7; Mojang’s version manifest for release dates and the latest versions.
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Featured image: AI-generated illustration
