What Is the Best "Dummy" Item in Minecraft? 

If you have a suggestion, question, or other comment, read this first to see if it's already been addressed! First off, here are some GREAT ideas I've seen here in the comments: - Any Soup or Stew, with the exception of Rabbit Stew as of 24w33a (can be fed to wolves) - Trial Keys with a custom_data component (Vaults no longer recognize them) These ideas work but might have weird quirks: - Enchanted Book with no enchantments - they can be placed in a bookshelf, so they're a great dummy item if the new custom item is some type of book! - Command Blocks, Structure Blocks, Jigsaws, and Other Technical Items: Great in survival, but annoying to test in Creative because you can place them - Spawn Eggs, set to spawn a Player using entity_data. This does NOT work if you simply remove the entity_data component, because the egg will default to its base mob. The weird quirk is that if you click on any block, it will play the hand animation, but nothing happens. - Written Books, with the relevant component removed. Again, you can play the hand animation by right clicking - Recovery Compasses have functionality in their sprite, so if a player disabled the resource pack, they'd be able to use them as normal Limitations of some other popular ideas I keep seeing a lot of: - Clocks attract Piglins - Cooked Salmon and Cod can now be fed to Wolves as of 24w33a - Knowledge books always vanish on right-click even if they have no recipes in them - Goat Horns CAN have their "instrument" component removed, but in that case, they revert to the "default" horn rather than being stripped of their functionality - Any sort of potion will always be drinkable, even if it has no effects. Mundane potion, thick potion, etc. - "Air" is not an item, so it can't be used at all Corrections/Updates for things said in the video: - Stone Pickaxes trigger "Getting An Upgrade" advancement, which I had completely forgotten about while making the video. Also, while removing an item's durability prevents crafting two of the item together to repair them, you CAN still use the dummy item to repair a damaged tool in an Anvil specifically, so all tools are basically ruled out sadly. - Poisonous Potatoes count towards "A Balanced Diet" advancement, so they should never be used as the underlying item of a new custom food. For any custom item that isn't edible, though, poisonous potatoes still work great. - Music Discs are still the #1 best option of all, and I have yet to see any evidence refuting this :) Other Common Questions: *"Isn't Netherite immune to fire and lava?"* Yes, but this is controlled by the minecraft:fire_resistant component, which can also be removed! (Though unfortunately, the previously-mentioned limitation with all tools - anvil repairing - means netherite items are still ruled out.) *"Will this cause custom items to drop from potato crops?"* No! Turning a poisonous potato into a custom item will NOT cause regular farmed potatoes to start dropping your custom item, nor will Creepers start dropping your item when killed by skeletons. The plum that I showed in the beginning had a custom_model_data component on it - this means that a resource pack was changing its texture, and *regular* apples were completely unaffected. You can have an apple and a plum coexisting, so it truly is just like a brand new item added to the game. *"Can't music discs still output a comparator signal?"* If you were referring to the jukebox output, removing jukebox_playable makes it so they can't even be placed in a jukebox in the first place, and if you were talking about their output from a chest/hopper, that's controlled entirely by max_stack_size, which can also be edited. So, no unavoidable behavior either way. *"Can't poisonous potatoes be used to brew potions of poison?"* Nope. I have no idea where this rumor came from, but I'm including it here because I've had a surprising amount of people ask this question. Poison potions are made using Spider Eyes; poisonous potatoes do indeed have absolutely no uses besides eating. *"Don't you need lapis to see enchantments in the enchanting table?"* Nope! You can always enchant items even without lapis if you're in Creative mode, and in Survival, you'll still be able to see the enchanting options even though you can't click on them. If nothing shows up at all, the item is unenchantable.

I use poisonous potatoes, kinda makes me wonder if the poisonous potato update was a hint at it's upcoming subtle relevance

ive been using poisonous potatoes but i thought they could be composted and just didnt care. turns out it was actually the perfect dummy item all along

I hope Mojang can actually add the dummy item for datapack maker.

a surprisingly good option for a dummy item for a datapack for survival only is command blocks. they cant be placed, they dont do anything, they cant be used in a crafting recipe, they cant be traded, theres nothing they can do if youre in survival. also all command block types can be used.

I don't care if it's scripted the bit where you were straight face explain mode the entire time, and then do a failed reveal of it turning out to be non-enchantable too, thus making the climax of the video redundant is Pure Gold.

The poisonous potato is so useless, that it's not useless.

The stone pickaxe grants an achievement

I just checked and you can still enchant the pickaxe with an anvil unless you remove the enchantments component.

i remember back in the day we used a carrot on a stick for giant command block contraptions

The best dummy item is the Knowledge Book. You can only get this through commands, but as far as I'm aware, it does literally nothing.

do I make datapacks? no. did I just sit through this entire video? fuck yeah. great video lol

I think poisonous potato is still the perfect item because we know Mojang will never add an additional use to it, but maybe in the future theres gonna be some mob that eats music disks or something

I went through this process on 1.20.5 and landed on the command block, since even with other datapacks with new crafting recipes its less likely to show up in a recipe, and unlike all the other technical blocks, it can't be placed down in survival. Really excited about the music discs being able to be stripped too, was making a green lantern pack with them a while back, and the ability to make them act as colorful magic rings without jukebox functionality is perfect!

I personally use rabbit skin as dummy keycard items, since they are unlikely to be accidentally crafted into leather, because you usually have less than 4 of them in your inventory. Since I play without cheats and I cannot remove properties with commands, this is the most vanilla dummy item I found.

The command blocks and spawn eggs are GREAT if you want to add items that are used as crafting components... Because they aren't used for anything in survival mode (i.e. crafting recipes, entity interactions, etc), and there are a TON of them!

WHOAAA the music disc is really smart! I usef something similar before, enchanted books. The only issue was that if you set the enchantment glint override to false for something like a custom weapon youre making, it wouldnt show as enchanted when you use it on an enchantment table. Ive been WAITING for a video like this, its really specific but its very necessary. Thanks for sharing youe knowledge!!!!!!

i believe you could also use all the soups/stews as dummy items as long as you remove the food component, they can't be composted

I recently saw a datapack that lets you add custom items for each spawn egg, by setting the player to adventure mode when holding the egg and giving the egg the ability to break all blocks (as if you were holding any other regular item) but not be placed. Only downside is they can still be spawned with dispensers, but still, 70+ custom items usable in crafting recipes is pretty useful regardless. Also, I've been using music discs for custom items in my datapack (all the vanilla music discs are modified versions of the disc 13 item, and the rest of the music disc items are free to be replaced). I didn't realize you could outright disable jukebox functionality though, so i just had them play the first 0.01 second of another song and then go silent. I immediately changed all of them as soon as i saw you could disable it completely lol

poisonous potato.

Me just screaming poisonous potato the whole video, but I actually love the idea of using discs WAY more

Knowledge books can also be used as a dummy item. (EDIT: I realised knowledge books get consumed when you right click even in there isn't any recipes in them) By the way, can you use recovery compass as a dummy item? If not, why not? If you want something wearable (like armor), you can use netherite armor as a base item. If you want something throwable, use potions.

2:02 bro just solved racism

with a pickaxe you would still be able to craft it with a damaged pickaxe to repair it, which rules out the pickaxe

Mojang said poisonous potatoes were never meant to be useful, but the community always finds a way

I kinda had this idea that if you broke glass with a mace, it would create glass shard items that can't be used for anything. What's cool is that we would have 18 different colors of them, therefore new 18 dummy items (if the discs weren't enough).

for those who needs it, heres the commands: Stone pickaxe : /give @s stone_pickaxe[!tool,!damage,!minecraft:max_damage,!minecraft:attribute_modifiers,minecraft:max_stack_size=64] Poisonous potato : /give @s minecraft:poisonous_potato[!food] Music disc : /give @s minecraft:music_disc_cat[!minecraft:jukebox_playable,rarity=common,minecraft:max_stack_size=64]

Modders: _Look what they need to mimic a fraction of our power._

personally i think you should keep the food component of the poisonous potato purely for the fuck around and find out aspect of whatever item you decided to turn it into

If you want the item to be inaccessible through standard means: There is one issue i can think of with using poisonous potatoes, when a potato crop is broken, there is a chance a poisonous potato can drop. But if you edit the loot table for potato crops, you could remove that. In theory, you could remove certain disks from its various loor tables as well.

i have given up in my datapack programming journey about 2 years ago but this video gave me back my fire. thank you, im gonna go code some stuff

My personal favorite is the Glistering Melon Slice.

Stone and Netherite Pickaxes aren't true dummy items as enchantments can still be applied to them via an anvil. Also if you want to use them as ingredients in custom recipes (which currently ignore components) players can just use regular stone or netherite picks, and discs and poisonous potatos have the same issue. If you aren't using them in recipes tho then it doesn't matter - but something to keep in mind regardless. As for what I use; it depends entirely on the behaviour I want for the item - my goal is for it to be as seamless as possible with vanilla. So for example; I wanted a custom block item with the exact same placement rules as powder snow, so for that I used a *structure void* with a custom name, item model and data, and the block itself is then placed via a function that runs from an advancement which triggers when a structure void with that custom data is placed. For solid block placing rules I use *Barriers* (I wont use item frames or spawn eggs for this sorta thing as those can be placed inside a space already occupied by a block) Before 1.20.5, for one-off, non-stackable items I used *goat horns* without an instrument, and for stackable items used one of the *operator items* (like the different types of command blocks, jigsaw and structure blocks) because they had no right-click functionality in survival, and weren't used in any vanilla recipes or anything... Now tho I use *poisonous potatoes* with their food component removed and a custom stack size depending on what I need. *Operator items* still see use from me atm when I really want a custom item to be used in a recipe because there's no other way to obtain them normally - so I can use them without having to try and work around the mess that is doLimitedCrafting and tracking/taking/giving recipes. Only having 5 or so dummy items to work with there is limiting, but not as limiting as having none. If it weren't for the hard-coded dispenser interaction, I'd definitely move to spawn eggs for the sheer variety of them (I'd just have to be sure to set the player's gamemode to adventure while they're holding one) - but if it weren't for the fact we still don't have actual component crafting it wouldn't even be an issue... ANYWAY, I'm sure we'll have data-driven items soon - it seems to be what they've been working towards - so soon enough all these limitations and workarounds will be a thing of the past lol

Come to think of it, using an item and reflavoring it to be a new item is kinda funny cuz... that's basically what you do when programming a mod too. The big difference being you can actually overwrite properties of the base with programming.

Heya, I'm part of the community driven beta for RogueCraft. Data packs can implement custom recipes with custom NBT to create an infinite number custom items via resource packs. Also, the way you're hardcoding the name to be Plum can be done through the RP's lang files. if you name the output as item.food.plum" and add a translation to every language then it works for every user in every language, not locking the user to english only "^^

What about the light blocks? You immediately have 15 unique items, and you can do with them whatever you want. If they can't be placed in survival though, and I don't know if this is the case.

Awesome! I also struggled with this. Without components, the closest I came to a dummy item was Scute, since nobody would accidentally craft something with it, or paper in the case of playing cards or money where it would make sense for them to be paper and you would be gimping yourself if you used them in crafting recipes.

Some time ago I was thinking the same thing but with blocks. Because some times you want to use neutral blocks to use as support block like when you do redstone tests. But most blocks do something

CLOCKS a completely overlooked item that you missed. they have absolutely no crafting recipes that use it, no interactions with blocks or mobs, they arent food. they literally can't do anything. the only thing i'd think might possibly get in the way of it being the perfect dummy item is if the different frames of it mess with retexturing. but other than that, you need to make ZERO changes to it.

i mean if you can remove the ability to eat something then poisonous potato becomes kinda the obvious answer

I use pottery sherds, which is really good because I have 20+ fully custom items that can be used in crafting recipes and the sort. Decorated pots are still possible with clay pots I've added as well, which lets you place sherds on each side individually. Then you can push it over a fire to make a real decorated pot. There's more then just that, but it was pain.

YES! Finally somebody else is talking about how great components are. I’m making a food data pack and i’m constantly running into the problem of running out of dummy items. But the pickaxe brought me a great idea. Something else i personally use is Suspicious Stew, which (when given with /give, and then given the [!food] component) becomes a dummy item. Just apply max stack size and you’re good to go.

Holy heck this is invaluable info.

you can combine two stone tools in your crafting grid to repair them, not sure if u can anvil them too but yeah i think stone pick isn't perfect either

so proud of myself for guessing poisonous potato immediately without even knowing what he meant by 'dummy item' at first

If you happen to be making an adventure map, this becomes much easier, because adventure mode automatically restricts the player from doing many things. For example, the player can only place blocks with CanPlaceOn, so any block that is not a crafting ingredient is automatically a dummy item unless it has that component (but only in adventure mode).

This kind of vieosr made me realize despite how different are, both data packs and bedrock addons are very limited on different departments, we on Bedrock can make custom items and blocks very easily, detect right click without weird archivement gymnastics and much more, but we can only fake custom enchantments using custom lor with no enchantment glint , jtems can have one texture only with no option for 3d models outside of when held in the hand, no new music discs, vanilla tools are imposible to fully replicate and vanilla items are all hardcoded so if you wanna eat your diamond sword you need to make a whole new sword that's edible. I hope Mojang can give both the same tools some day so we can go toe to toe with modders

6:23 Out of context, the sentence "It can't do anything and I can do whatever I want with it." is hilariously asinine.

this was actually super interesting! glad i came across your random little video, which was nicely straight to the point and explained i’ll add :)

Before watching, my best guess would be the recovery compass, as it's only looked at to be used, and with a texture pack could be changed to a static item that does absolutely nothing else with the only downfall being that it's craftable.

5:48, immediate idea: POISONOUS POTATO (edit) 6:06 - YEAH

The issue with the poisonous potato is that they can harvest randomly while farming potatoes, meaning you could randomly just get the item.

I genuinely don’t know why I watched this video- I’m not a datapack creator, and I don’t mess with anything like that. Either way, neat video

I previously used sticks and just hoped people wouldn't be dumb enough to craft anything with them. This will help me improve my data packs a lot.

Small remarks about the beginning of the video. - You can also rename apples to plums through resource packs. I reckon you already knew that, though. - And genuine question here, can’t we use custom crafting recipes from datapacks to disable the default uses of bricks? Or are those hardcoded? Yeah I’m really outdated map making-wise 😅

It's crazy how limited mincraft is when it comes to community created content even after all these years and with all the resources they potentially could allocate to that. The fact that they still don't have an official modding api is insane to me

Kinda remember the idea of using the recipe book as a dummy item a few years ago, by that I mean the item that serves as an icon for the recipe tab, pretty sure that is or at least was an actual item you could get

Haven't made any Datapacks recently, but incredibly helpful nonetheless, thank you.

Turtle scutes, despite being absolutely crucial for turtle master potions, is unbelievably useless outside of it. Most people rarely brew it too since it's much easier to just make a gApple.

Back in the day we used to use carrots on sticks for right click functions as literally noone cared enough to craft one

i normally use the rabbits foot. Its just used for potions i think

This is some really useful information for people who might not know much about datapacks and minecraft spaghetti code, but who still wanna customize their game. Good job!

The item is now used as a dummy item, so we need a new unused item to be a dummy item.

I had poisonous potatoes lock in as my final answer and was surprised by pickaxes and music discs. I honestly wasn't expecting music discs. To explain the confidence in my answer, Jeb wrote a book that Minecraft devs must follow and one of the pages he showed off to the public was the page on the poisonous potato. "The poisonous potato must not be given a use" is an unbreakable rule.

I’ve used structure voids for a long time since they have no uses, cannot be placed in survival mode, and have no other interactions. You could realistically use any other "command only" block that can’t be placed in survival mode, I just like how structure voids look more neutral.

have been pondering on this exact problem, thanks for the video as i was not aware of the ability to outright remove components

I actually made a datapack that turns Spawn Eggs into Dummy Items by putting the player in adventure mode when theyre held

If I remember correctly (at least on bedrock edition) the update block cannot be placed when you have it in item form. If you don't know what the update block is, it is a placeholder block for tiles occupied by something your game doesnt recognize. It looks like a dirt block with some text on it. The text is colored similarly to grass and tells the player to update their game.

A server I play on uses warped fungus on a stick and iron ingots for unstackables and stackables, and both work perfectly fine with no mods and no unintended crafting recipes. We also use the various brown mushroom blockstates for custom blocks, with some code required to prevent them from interacting with each other.

My mind just goes to the new flowers from the sniffer update. They are decoration (and not very good ones). They don't even give you dye. They are quite useless.

Even without components (because I’m 200 years old)… here’s a good one: command blocks. Assuming your players are in Survival or Adventure, obviously~

I used to use "enchanted book" with no enchantment and repair cost set to 999

RU-vid is starting to fix their algorithm and promote valuable less known creators. Good work!

What I like about the different options is that you can have stackable / unstackable options with the PP / discs, respectively (unless that’s also a component now too!)

So this is why Jeb wants to keep poisonous potatoes useless...

Would be cool if Mojang added a literal "dummy" item that would do absolutely nothing and could only be obtained through the /give command

Glistening melons seem like a good choice, they are not used in crafting only in potion brewing

If components didn't exist, i would use glistering melon slices (look it up). They are inedible and only used for potion making. Nobody in their right mind would think of crafting one and nobody would think of putting a random item into a brewing stand.

didnt test this, but have an inkling that changing the stack size of the dummy item *could* (not positive, again this is untested) have unintended consequences with: 1. hopper minecarts (which change movement speed depending on how full it is and can be strange if there are overstacked items that are usually unstackable), 2. comparator signal if the item is placed in a container, or 3. how bundles store items (it can also behave weird on how certain items stack depending on how they're hardcoded). in case any of these would have any issue, probably the best solution is to use music discs for items intended to be unstackable, like a new tool, and use poisonous potatoes for items intended to be stackable, like a consumable that runs a command

I think this just shows how way too limited datapacks and resource packs really are. Mods will never be replaced until they give datapacks creators the same powers as mods, or at least as much

I didn’t even know poisonous potatoes could be eaten… I thought they were supposed to clutter your inventory.

Knowledge book is pretty good i think

This is gonna be very useful for future map making! thanks!

i swear to god when i saw the title of the video i was like "poisonous potato without food component sounds like its a dummy item but idk lets check the video" IM VERY MAD

I usually use Structure Void.

I was going to say phantom membrane since its only application is repairing Elytra, but I forgot you can also brew potions with that now as well...

Such an evenly paced and interesting video lol i almost never work with datapacks but it’s so cool to see what goes into making them

i don't really make datapacks anymore but when i did 3-4 years ago before all these fancy components i was using a clock as a dummy item. can't be placed, can't be crafted into anything, can't be sold to a villager, it's already a perfect dummy item without even using components because all of it's functionality is its texture that will be changed anyway

This video is just the new mob vote

Minecraft should literally just add a command-only item called "Dummy" for this exact purpose

You can then use a datapack to make custom items, and use a resource pack that swaps the texture only if it matches a certain name, or maybe a tag, if it can.

poisonous potatoe seems like the safest to use due to the fact mojang wants that item to stay useless

goat horn with no instrument

The pufferfish

Some ideas i got: 1. Debug stuck. Works, but you can't break blocks while holding it 2. Nametag, but must not be named

i scrolled through a good chunk of the comments on this video, kinda surprised that nobody brought up thick potions

Banner Pattern with a custom 'blank' pattern on it via components Of all the things it can do, having it not let you pick a banner pattern in a loom if you put it in seems the least evil, aside from "i can place it in creative" speaking of placing technical items- how about a Command Block Minecart? you can only place it on rails in creative, and iirc dispensers can't use it

A poisonous_potato[!food] has got to be it, it's as simple as it gets. Its only functionality is as a food, which can easily be removed, and everything else about it is normal (stackable to 64, common, y'know).

you should make a datapack that adds dummy item so you don't have to think about it in the future

you'd think theyd add a bespoke "perfectly generic item".. item already for this purpose :/ even just for testing themselves