Minecraft Manhunt (series)

Minecraft Manhunt is a YouTube series popularized by Dream. The concept revolves around a speedrunner who attempts to defeat the Ender dragon ("beat the game") while one or more hunters try to kill the speedrunner. The series has acquired millions of views, and are some of Dream's most popular videos, with Minecraft Speedrunner VS 3 Hunters GRAND FINALE as the most popular and viewed video on his whole channel achieving over 100 million views.

Origin
Minecraft Manhunt was originally created by Wilbur Soot. However, his version of Minecraft Manhunt was different from Dream's. Instead of having all of his friends beat him until he defeats the Ender Dragon, a random subscriber of his Twitch channel becomes a hunter every three minutes. The video of his Minecraft Manhunt can be found here.

Overview
A manhunt typically involves the speedrunner attempting to carry out the following tasks:


 * Acquire supplies (tools, armor/shield, food, etc.).
 * Create a Nether portal (either by fixing a ruined portal or locating a lava pool) to travel to the Nether.
 * Locate a Nether fortress and kill blazes for blaze rods.
 * Acquire Ender Pearls to craft Eyes of Ender (either through piglin trading, villager trading, or killing Endermen for Ender Pearls).
 * Locate the stronghold to travel to the End.
 * Kill the Ender dragon.

The sole objective of the hunter or hunters is to cause the death of the speedrunner - if the speedrunner dies at any point prior to killing the Ender dragon (either from dying in combat, dying to a trap, or accidental deaths) - it is a defeat and the manhunt ends. Common tactics of the hunters are to set up traps for the speedrunner (usually at the Nether portal or stronghold), or better equip themselves while the speedrunner is collecting resources (e.g. enchanted armor, potions). The speedrunner does not necessarily have to kill the hunters at any point, though this often happens anyway, as doing so will usually give the speedrunner a significant advantage.

Rules
Dream has stated that Manhunt has a few rules to keep the game entertaining and fair to all players. Some rules which have been confirmed are:


 * The speedrunner has a 20 minute "grace period", so as to ensure the video will be to a reasonable degree of quality and entertainment. If the hunters kill the speedrunner too early on, they restart and do another attempt. Dream has released footage of a failed Manhunt run to his Twitter, which has since been uploaded to YouTube.
 * In a recent stream, Dream clarified on this rule saying they don't use a "grace period" anymore. To make it entertaining, if a hunter kills him early on, they get a monetary prize and restart. This allows the beginning of the videos to be more interesting
 * Using the Nether to travel long distances is not allowed.
 * Trapping or breaking Nether portals is not allowed.
 * Deleting the End Portal by growing a mushroom is banned following Minecraft Speedrunner VS 4 Hunters FINALE REMATCH.
 * Victory for the speedrunner is achieved upon killing the Ender Dragon and getting the Free The End advancement. If the speedrunner kills the dragon and dies before exiting through the end portal, it is still considered a win for the speedrunner.
 * Dream stated on a live stream that they usually ban certain Minecraft Manhunt plays Dream does to make it more creative. He also did this in Death Swap, where he banned the Nether to prevent lava pool traps.
 * Respawning the Ender Dragon is not allowed.
 * Utilizing an Ender Pearl stasis chamber is not allowed.
 * Exploiting the Ender Dragon's perch feature is not allowed (a.k.a no glitches with the Dragon.)
 * Certain tricks/glitches are allowed once and banned the next Manhunt.

Variations
There are several different variations of Minecraft Manhunt:


 * Slayer/Hunter: The default version, in which the hunter(s) receive a compass which points to the location of the speedrunner. If the speedrunner is in a different dimension such as the Nether, the Overworld compass points to the portal through which they traveled. In early versions of Manhunt, the compass did not work at all in other dimensions - this has since been fixed.
 * Detective: The speedrunner leaves an everlasting particle trail (redstone dust) behind them. It has proven to be the worst ability, as the hunter can easily be deceived by the speedrunner retracing their steps.
 * Juggernaut: The hunter spawns with full, enchanted diamond armor and has an enchanted diamond sword. The hunter also retains their inventory upon death.
 * Assassin: The hunter has the ability to one-shot the speedrunner through a melee attack. This does not work via projectiles such as arrows. Their weakness is that they can be frozen if the speedrunner is looking at them, leaving them unable to attack and vulnerable to damage/death in various ways.
 * Mutant: The hunter receives the default tracking compass, and is also able to hear the same in-game sounds that the speedrunner hears, in real-time.
 * Survivalist/Hitmen: The survivalist is restricted to a small section of the world, and permanently has the Glowing status effect. They only have to survive for a set amount of time (1 hour in the first video, 1 hour and 30 minutes in the second video) rather than attempting to beat the game. Starting from the second video, the gamemode alternates every ten minutes between regular survival where the chase proceeds normally and an invincibility period where no players can die and is mainly focused on gathering supplies and/or trolling the opposing parties. The hitmen are equipped with the default tracking compass.

Trivia

 * The title of the first two manhunt videos (Dream vs GeorgeNotFound) were originally "Beating Minecraft, But My Friend Tries To Stop Me..." and "Minecraft Speedrunner VS Someone Trying To Stop Them". These were changed in early 2021 to fit with the titles of the later manhunts.
 * Dream has only been the hunter in six manhunts. In two manhunt matchups, he was the speedrunner in one match and hunter in the other.
 * Dream has never lost a manhunt as a hunter. Conversely, George has never won a manhunt as the speedrunner.
 * Antfrost and Awesamdude are the only regular participants to not have been a solo hunter against Dream.
 * Minecraft Speedrunner VS 2 Hunters was the only manhunt that did not have a rematch.
 * Minecraft Speedrunner VS 2 Hunters is the first manhunt video in which Dream wins in his first try in a Minecraft Manhunt. In his other first manhunt videos against one, three, four, or five hunters the first time, Dream lost.
 * Minecraft Speedrunner VS 2 Assassins is the shortest video for a Manhunt.
 * An unedited version of Minecraft Speedrunner VS 4 Hunters FINALE was released by Dream on his second channel, which runs for three hours.
 * A second "manhunt" took place at the end of the 4 hunters finale in which BadBoyHalo was the speedrunner and Dream, GeorgeNotFound, Sapnap and Antfrost were the hunters. The manhunt only lasted a few minutes, and BadBoyHalo died by drowning before he even managed to collect any items.
 * Minecraft Speedrunner Vs Detective... is the only Manhunt to not feature Dream in any regard.
 * Minecraft Speedrunner VS Hunter LIVE is the first Manhunt that was live streamed.
 * So far, every player had a victory shown on the first video that starred them as a hunter.
 * The most frequently background music that was used for Minecraft Manhunt is Bobby Cole's "Trance Music for Racing Game".
 * Since 3 Hunters, there are a total of 5 Manhunts. Dream has won both the 3 Hunters and 4 Hunters in a 3-2.
 * Minecraft Manhunt has spanned across 4 major Minecraft updates: 1.15, 1.16, 1.17, and 1.18. (Proposed Snapshot used in Minecraft Speedrunner VS 5 Hunters FINALE)
 * Since 3 Hunters, BadBoyHalo is the only hunter to have killed Dream multiple times. He set a lava trap on Dream in Minecraft Speedrunner VS 3 Hunters. He killed Dream with just a fist in Minecraft Speedrunner VS 3 Hunters FINALE. He set an End Crystal to blow up on Dream in Minecraft Speedrunner VS 5 Hunters FINALE REMATCH. The other hunters have only killed Dream once.
 * During recording of a manhunt, there were times the players eat/drink.
 * In Minecraft Speedrunner VS 3 Hunters, Dream talked about having his Gatoride ready to drink before seeing the lava trap.
 * During MCC AS, Dream and George mention BadBoyHalo ordering pizza to eat in the middle of a manhunt due to being hungry.
 * Dream mention about George having pot noodle when the server crash.
 * Sapnap talks about sneaking snacks without Dream knowing to eat during Manhunt.