Soul Soil

Overview

Soul soil looks like soul sand's twin and behaves differently in the two ways that matter. It does not slow you down, and it does not make bubble columns — so it is the block to use when you want the soul aesthetic without the movement penalty. In exchange it does something soul sand cannot: fire lit on soul soil burns blue as soul fire, which deals more damage than ordinary fire and, critically, repels piglins within 8 blocks. That makes soul soil the base material for soul torches, soul lanterns and soul campfires, the whole family of light sources that piglins will not approach, and the cheapest defensive perimeter available in the Nether. Soul Speed can be enchanted onto boots and works on soul soil exactly as it does on soul sand. Nether wart will not grow on soul soil, which is the other difference worth remembering before you carry a stack home. It generates in soul sand valleys alongside soul sand, needs only a shovel, and is one of the more distinctive brown building blocks in the game.

Soul fire and the soul torch, lantern and campfire family, all of which repel piglins within 8 blocks — the cheapest way to secure a Nether camp without building walls.

Minecraft classifies Soul Soil as a Nether block. It is gathered by mining rather than crafted. With a hardness of 0.5 it gives way immediately under almost any tool.

Any tool works, and so do bare hands. Mining it returns the block itself, so it is safe to relocate. A blast resistance of 0.5 means a single creeper will clear it away.

It stacks to 64. You will need it for Soul Campfire and Soul Torch.

How to get it

Dig it with a shovel in the soul sand valley biome, where it generates alongside soul sand in large sheets. 1 soul soil plus 1 stick and 1 coal makes 4 soul torches.

Tips

Fire on soul soil burns blue and repels piglins; fire on soul sand does not, which is the main difference.
It does not slow you down like soul sand, so use soil for floors and sand only where you want the effect.
Nether wart will not grow on soul soil at all — take soul sand home for the farm.
1 soul soil plus a stick and coal makes 4 soul torches, which light and repel at the same time.

How long it takes to break

At a hardness of 0.5, Soul Soil takes 0.75 seconds to punch out and 0.1 seconds with a netherite-tier tool of the correct class.

You are looking at 0.15 seconds on iron and 0.1 on diamond — the diamond step is where the time actually falls.

There is no tier requirement to worry about. Any tool, or none, returns the drop; the numbers below just say how fast.

Efficiency contributes its level squared plus one to tool speed, which makes Efficiency V roughly 2 times faster than the plain tool.

Tool	No enchantment	Efficiency III	Efficiency V
Hand	0.75 s	0.75 s	0.75 s
Wooden	0.4 s	0.1 s	instant
Stone	0.2 s	0.1 s	instant
Iron	0.15 s	instant	instant
Diamond	0.1 s	instant	instant
Netherite	0.1 s	instant	instant
Golden	0.1 s	instant	instant

Properties

With 0.5 blast resistance Soul Soil goes down to any nearby explosion. It is fully opaque and produces no light. One inventory slot holds 64, the normal full stack. It is not renewable: every one in the world is finite. A shovel is fastest here; any other class mines it at bare-hand speed, because the bonus only applies to the class the block is tagged for.

Transparent: No
Required tool: Any
Renewable: No