What Is KOTH in Minecraft? Arena KOTH on MiningMaven SMP: Schedule, Rules and Rewards

KOTH means King of the Hill. How it works on Minecraft servers, and the exact schedule, capture rules and rewards of Arena KOTH on MiningMaven SMP.

By the MiningMaven SMP team · Updated October 23, 2026

KOTH stands for King of the Hill. It is a timed event on a Minecraft server where players fight to hold a capture zone, the hill, for long enough to win a prize. On MiningMaven SMP it is called Arena KOTH, and it runs four times every day.

When Arena KOTH runs

• Four times a day: 1pm, 5pm, 9pm and 1am Eastern (noon, 4pm, 8pm and midnight Central).
• Warnings appear on screen and in chat 15, 5 and 1 minute before it starts.
• The hill is the arena at spawn. The arena and the colosseum are the only places PvP is on.
• Dying in the arena or the colosseum keeps your items and XP.
• You cannot teleport into the arena or the colosseum. /tp, /tpa, /home and /back are all blocked there. Walk in, or throw an ender pearl.
• Each event lasts at most 15 minutes. If nobody finishes a capture in that time, it ends with no winner.
• KOTH only counts when at least 2 players are online. With fewer, it is skipped, and if a capture finishes while fewer than 2 are online it ends with no winner and nothing is paid.

How capturing works

• Only one player can capture at a time. Stand in the zone alone for 3 minutes in total to win.
• If two or more players are in the zone, the boss bar shows "Contested!" and the timer freezes for everyone. That includes teammates.
• Getting hit does not touch your progress. The only way to stop a capture is to get into the zone yourself and contest it.
• If a different player ends up alone in the zone, the capture restarts from zero for them.
• If the zone is left empty, progress slowly drains at half speed.

What the winner gets

• 1 KOTH Key, $250,000 and 50 Tokens, paid instantly. If your inventory is full, the key goes to your /overflow storage.
• A KOTH win on the KOTH Champions leaderboard at spawn (this week's wins, for bragging rights).
• KOTH Keys are not sold in /keys. They sometimes show up in the Black Market.

The KOTH Crate

The KOTH Key opens the KOTH Crate at spawn, which gives two prizes per key:

• The KOTH Sword, Helmet, Chestplate, Leggings and Boots.
• $5,000, ender pearls, XP bottles, golden apples and an Enchanted Golden Apple.
• Flight vouchers from Small up to Mega, a Safari Net, an Enhanced Sell Wand and an Enchantment Extractor.
• Enchantments and Supreme keys, and a 100 Tokens prize.

Tips for winning

• Be at the arena before the start. The 15-minute warning is your cue to gear up.
• Go in alone. A friend is more useful outside the zone, keeping attackers off you.
• To stop someone else's capture, get into the zone. Hitting them from outside will not stop it.
• Bring food, golden apples and ender pearls to get back into the zone fast.
• Bring your best gear. Dying in the arena keeps your items and XP.

Join MiningMaven SMP

MiningMaven is a cross-play survival server — Java Edition and Bedrock Edition (phone, console, Windows) play in the same world — with custom cosmetics, KOTH events, quests, and a player-driven economy. Open Minecraft, add the server below, and talk to the NPCs at spawn to get started.