Updated 23 October 2026. Facts on this page come from minecraft.wiki, minecraft.net and the live Artemis PvP server; sources are listed at the bottom.
Spleef
Spleef is a last-player-standing minigame on a floor of breakable blocks: you dig the floor out from under other players so they fall, and the last one still standing wins.
What is Spleef in Minecraft?
minecraft.wiki calls Spleef a community-created competitive minigame. Players break easy blocks, usually snow or wool, under their opponents so they drop into a pit below the field. The name joins "splat", the sound of hitting the ground, with "grief", because the game is about destroying blocks.
Spleef began on a server before 23 June 2009, soon after multiplayer Creative arrived in Java Edition Classic, and took off after Notch wrote a blog post about it. A lot of public servers still have some kind of Spleef arena.
What are the rules of Spleef?
- No placing blocks once the game starts.
- No placing or breaking blocks after you have lost.
- Losers rebuild the floor afterwards (optional; many arenas reset automatically).
- If players are stuck on separate islands, the one with the most space wins or the arena resets.
- Hitting other players is not allowed, except in variants.
Arenas usually use snow or clay because they break quickly; players carry a shovel, or shears for wool.
Did Minecraft make an official Spleef mode?
Yes. Legacy Console Edition added Tumble on 30-31 August 2016, a mini game most like Spleef. A Tumble game has three rounds; modes include Shovels (one life, one layer), Snowballs (one life, three layers) and Mixed. Up to 8 players could join on most platforms, 4 on PlayStation Vita.
Can you play Spleef on ArtemisPvP?
/g menu. Every game pays the same Minigame Token prizes: 10 for 1st place, 4 for 2nd, 3 for 3rd, 2 for 4th and 1 for 5th, plus Minigame Points for kills and other actions. Each game carries a Point/Token multiplier that rises by 0.25x every time the game fails to start, up to 3x. Full rules and rewards: Minigames on Artemis PvP. Join at play.artemispvp.com with Java Edition (1.8.9 up to 26.2) or Bedrock Edition.Frequently asked questions
What does Spleef mean?
It combines splat (the sound of landing) and grief (destroying blocks).
Can you hit players in Spleef?
Not in classic rules. Some variants allow it.
Sources
Every fact on this page was checked against these pages; the wording is ours.