Find any spot in survival or a sky world and run /buildcontest. It does not have to be a build you made. People vote on the set of photos, so bring the best set you can find. The server draws the blocks it can see from your eyes. Shaders, your HUD, item frames, paintings, armor stands, mobs, and other entities are not in the picture. One entry per account each month.
When
November 1, 2026, midnight Pacific. Submissions open. You have all of November to take photos. The theme is Harvest.
December 1. November's entries go public and voting opens. December opens for new photos at the same time.
January 1, 2027. The November winner is announced. December's entries go up for votes, and January opens for new photos.
After that it repeats. You submit during a month. People vote the next month. The winner is announced on the 1st of the month after voting. December's winner is February 1.
The winner picks any lore item in the item catalog. Open that page and leave the filter on Lore. Illegal enchants, plugin data, attributes, and named containers are not the prize. If two entries tie, the operator picks the winner. Until November 1 the command tells you the contest is not open. If the server does not know /buildcontest yet, it shows up after the next restart.
Themes
Every month has a theme, and the same theme comes back each year. November 2026 is the first one. The photos can be of any spot you find. They do not have to be a build you made.
November — Harvest
December — Lighting the darkness
January — Celebration of the Unconquerable
February — Ice
March — Spring
April — Storms and Rain
May — May Flowers
June — Summer
July — Independence
August — Exploration
September — Education
October — The Undead
What the picture actually is
It is not a screenshot of your client. The server walks the blocks from your eye position and the direction you are looking, using ordinary block colors. A sign is a block, so the block shows, and text on a sign close to the camera can appear. A chunk that is not loaded is sky. The server does not generate chunks to fill the picture in.
Entities are not in the picture. That includes item frames and whatever is displayed in them, glow item frames, paintings, armor stands, item displays, dropped items, mobs, players, boats, and minecarts. The view goes through them and shows the block behind, or sky if there is no solid block there.
The shot is saved when you run the command. Grief after that does not replace the entry. You have to be in survival or adventure. Spectator and creative are refused.
Who can enter
It does not have to be your build. Any spot you find in survival or a sky world counts. The whole set of photos is the entry.
Survival overworld, the nether, and the end, plus sky worlds on the Fabric server.
Creative, pvp, and private are not in the contest.
One entry per Java or Bedrock account per month.
The first shot locks the server and the dimension. A later shot from somewhere else is refused. A sky build and a survival build cannot share an entry.
How many shots
Up to 24 kept shots. Every place you stand has to be within 1024 blocks of every other place, in a straight line. Height counts. The nether uses nether blocks. A sky world uses that world's own coordinates.
Shots stay in the order you took them. Deleting one while the month is still open frees a slot.
See and delete your shots
/buildcontest takes the shot from where you are standing. Any spot counts.
/buildcontest status tells you the count and whether the month is open.
/buildcontest photos gives a private link to this month's shots, numbered the same way as delete. Do not share that link. Someone with it can delete your shots while the month is open.
/buildcontest delete plus the shot number removes that shot while the month is open. The private page has the same buttons. After the month closes, delete stops working.
Nothing from the open month is on this page. No coordinates are published with a shot.
Voting
Voting is on this page. No account. One vote per IP per day. A second click that day is refused and the vote stays where it was. The next day you can add another vote to the same build, or vote a different one. Old votes stay. Voting for your own entry counts.
While a month is open for votes, the totals on the buttons are live. When the month closes, the page keeps the final counts and the winner. Older months stay here.