Complex Prison Server Guide: IP, Ranks and Gangs

Complex Gaming Prison Server Guide
How to get started on the Complex Gaming Minecraft Prison server
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Server IP: hub.mc-complex.com (Bedrock port 19132)
Versions: Java 1.8 to latest (latest recommended), Bedrock with full crossplay
Mines: 38 (A to Z plus 12 prestige mines)
Features: pickaxe upgrades and skill tree, runes, gangs, Skull Island PvE/PvP zone, weekly leaderboards, Time Traveler, seasonal resets
Store: https://store.mc-complex.com/category/prison-ranks
Discord: https://discord.gg/ComplexVanilla
Gangs: 6 member slots (up to 8), plus a 10-player roster
Last checked: October 2026

This guide covers everything you need to know on Complex Prison, from your first rankup to endgame Skull Island grinding. Make sure to read it carefully if you have questions or are just getting started.​

Use /dailies - Small bonuses given daily!​

Voting is a quick and easy way to get money on Complex Prison. Type /vote in game and a link will pop up in chat that takes you to all 8 vanilla voting sites. Each site gives you rewards for voting for the Complex Network: $1,000, 5 tokens and a vote crate key per voting link. The vote crate key is the most valuable of these, since other players will buy vote keys for good prices that can help you rank up quickly. Look out for shop advertisements in public chat for places to sell them! You can vote once a day. Once you vote, you are eligible for vote party rewards, and you can run /vp for more information (vote parties are an easy way to get money early game). To check if you have voted today, run /haveivotedtoday.​

Another way to get daily rewards is by typing /dailies, which teleports you to the Postman. Right-click the Postman to open a menu where you can collect your daily rewards. As a member, you can collect your daily reward every 18 hours, and buying a rank on the store unlocks more rewards each day.​

If you have a Prison rank, you can use /kit to claim daily kits that give you tokens, runes, gear and a better pickaxe! Ranks can be purchased on our store: https://store.mc-complex.com/category/prison-ranks
If you don't want to purchase a rank but still want a better pickaxe (which is very important), you can buy pickaxes from other players on the auction house with /ah. More on the auction house later in this guide.​

The basics of making money
Complex Prison has a total of 38 mines: 26 rank mines from A to Z and 12 prestige mines! Use /mines to see which blocks are in each mine. The higher the mine, the better the blocks.
To rank up, type /rankup in chat once you have the required amount of money. You can also use /rankupmax to rank up as many times as your current money allows.
Once you reach rank Z and have the required amount of money, you can prestige! Type /prestige to see the rewards and boosts for each prestige.
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Prestiging does not reset your tokens or pickaxe.

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Your money does not wipe when you prestige, only the prestige cost is deducted. Prestiging resets your letter rank but unlocks a new mine for the prestige you reached! (Ex: Prestige 1 unlocks the Prestige 1 Mine).

The better your pickaxe, the more money you make while mining. To upgrade your pickaxe, type /upgrade while holding it. Upgrades cost tokens, and you can disable almost any upgrade when you don't need it. Make sure to stick with the pickaxe you claim at the beginning, since using another player's pickaxe cuts its upgrades to half their level while you use it.
There is also an event called Flash Mine every hour on the hour. In a personal Flash Mine, the top 3 players with the most blocks mined win tokens and a crate key. In a gang Flash Mine, the top 3 gangs win a 10%, 5% or 2.5% Gang Sell Booster and 250, 150 or 100 Gang Top points. See the Gang Events and Flash Mines Guide.​

Tokens are one of the most important currencies on Complex Prison. They are mainly used to upgrade pickaxes and armor. Tokens can't be withdrawn or traded to other players. Check your balance with /tokens.
You can earn tokens by mining (with the Lucky Mining enchant), opening crates, killing mobs on Skull Island, or opening lucky blocks. Lucky blocks come from the first perk of Lucky Mining (Lucky Spin). For more on Skull Island, check out the Skull Island section of this guide!​

Bidwars is a fast and efficient way to sell your items. You choose the currency (GC or in-game money) and the starting bid, and the community drives the final price. To get started, type /bidwars or choose "Bidwars" in the /market GUI. Click the chest, then click the emerald block to create an auction.

The Auction House is a vital part of the Prison economy. You can buy and sell items that aren't available in the regular /shop, like upgraded pickaxes and shards. Trading valuable items here is a great way to make money. Open the Auction House with /ah, or run /market and click "Auction House".

To list an item on the auction house, hold it and use /ah sell <Price>.​

Runes are custom enchants with special effects that you can apply to your armor and tools on Complex Prison.
There are 5 types of runes: common, rare, legendary, mythic and seasonal. Common, rare, legendary and mythic runes can be obtained at /warp infuser, where you trade experience for rune tomes.

Right-click one of the tomes to view all of the runes in that tier. Click the crown to see a list of every seasonal rune released on Prison. Seasonal runes cannot be obtained from tomes. These unique runes with custom abilities only come on seasonal tools and gear won from seasonal crates, and they cannot be transferred to another item.
Once you buy a tome with experience at the infuser, right-click it to receive a random rune. Each rune has a success rate, a fail rate and a critical fail rate. If the rune fails, it vanishes completely and is not applied. If it critically fails, the rune vanishes and your armor is destroyed completely. To prevent fails and critical fails, buy lucky gems (the clover at /warp infuser), which can raise the success rate up to 100 percent.
If you have runes you don't want, convert them into experience with the rune incinerator at the infuser (the bomb). To remove a rune or vanilla enchant from armor or a tool, buy a cleansing wand at the infuser (the wand). This is handy for upgrading a specific rune or getting rid of one you don't like!
Kingpin rank and higher can claim free random tomes every three days with /freerunes. Higher store ranks get more free runes each time.​

There are three types of milestones: personal milestones, block break milestones and gang milestones (also known as gang levels). Type /milestones to view all of yours. You get rewarded every time you complete one!​

Open your crate keys at /warp crates for a wide range of rewards. One of these rewards is Envoy Flares, which come from Prisoner, Escapist and Seasonal crates. Envoy flares are redeemed at /warp pvp and can be opened once the timer hits 0. They give great rewards, but PvP is enabled and other players can steal your contraband loot.
Money boosters also come from Prisoner and Escapist crates, and from milestones! They boost your sell price, which makes them one of the best ways to make a lot of money while mining. However, money boosters cannot be used at plots!
Dynamite can also be won from crates! It comes in 3 forms: Small Dynamite, Large Dynamite and Nukes. To use them, go to a mine and right-click to throw. Dynamite gives money but does not give tokens or experience.
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Dynamite cannot "proc" Seasonal Backpack runes.

Mystery boxes give you different cosmetics. You'll get them randomly as you play, or you can craft them with mystery dust in the Mystery Box GUI! To open your mystery boxes, use /warp cosmetics.
To personalize your gameplay even more, run /prefs to enable or disable specific settings.
Finally, if you're tired of the standard look of your pickaxe, you can get a pickaxe skin! Every seasonal crate has one, and you can also get them from the Time Traveler or buy them from other players. To equip a pickaxe skin, you first need to convert your pickaxe to netherite: craft a smithing table, buy a smithing template from /shop, get a netherite ingot (from lucky blocks, crates or the Z mine), place the smithing table at your plot, and convert your diamond pickaxe to netherite. Once your pickaxe is netherite, run /skins and click a skin you own to apply it.
Some pickaxes from kits are already netherite, so keep this in mind!​

Plots are another good way to make money. Players set up chest shops on their plots to buy and sell items while they mine. To learn how to set up your own chest shop, check out our Chest Shop Guide.
To get a plot, type /plot create (or /plot) and pick Tropical Island or Grass Plot. Plots are free. See the Prison Private Mines and Plots Guide for plot upgrades and settings.
To return to your plot, run /plots and click the plot you want to teleport to.
If you see "No plots currently available", none are free right now. Wait for a reboot and try again.
To browse other players' plots, run /pw. This is a good way to find popular chest shops to sell your items.
To get a featured plot, buy a featured slot for tokens in /pw whenever one is available.
To make a plot warp, run /plot, right-click your plot, click Plot Warps, and press Create a New Warp. You can then right-click the warp to adjust its settings. To make your plot public, click show on public warps under Warp Settings.

Hot streaks are enabled in /upgrade by right-clicking an upgrade and clicking the flint and steel. You can have up to 3 hot streaks enabled at any time.
When enabled, there is a small chance a hot streak will activate, boosting that specific upgrade.
An active hot streak lasts until your Mana runs out (shown on the right side of your screen). You start with 100 Mana storage, which can be upgraded with +Max Mana Increase Vouchers up to 150, plus 25 more for every prestige. To make hot streaks last longer, use Mana Refill Vouchers while a hot streak is active. Mana regenerates at 1 per minute (60 per hour) while you're online and 0.33 per minute (20 per hour) while you're offline, so choose your hot streaks wisely.​

The Momentum upgrade is an alternative way of mining. Instead of breaking blocks as fast as possible, you need to be precise. Unlock and activate Momentum with /upgrade while holding your pickaxe.
With Momentum, you break blocks by hitting the green particles shown on them.
As you build momentum, you gain a Fortune bonus, a Sell bonus and a Haste boost. How big the bonus is depends on your Momentum upgrade level and your streak. Your streak drops a little every few seconds, and the higher it gets, the faster it drops, so keep up the pace. Don't go too fast though, because one misclick can cost you your streak.​

Everyone starts with a special item called a backpack! Your backpack is extra storage for sellable blocks, and it starts filling once your inventory is full. Equip it by placing it in your offhand (from your inventory, or press 'F' while holding it).
Every backpack starts with a capacity of 500 blocks, and you can upgrade it by holding it in your offhand and pressing sneak + right-click to open the upgrade menu. Upgrades cost Golden Shards. See how many shards each level needs here: Backpack Guide | Complex Gaming Wiki.
You can get Golden Shards from the pickaxe enchant Scavenged Shards, or by killing mobs and escaping on Skull Island (/skull).
Seasonal backpacks are special backpacks with a unique custom enchantment. You can trade for them with other players using GC or in-game money, or win them from seasonal crates (Celestial, Imperial, Cupid, etc).​

Make your tools and armor stronger
Use /upgrade to upgrade your tools and armor with tokens and make them more efficient! This opens a menu where you can choose which upgrades to add to your pickaxe.​

The skill tree gives you many options to upgrade your tools. Once you complete one perk, you can move on to the next. Perks get exponentially stronger as you progress, and some require a specific prestige or level.​

If you don't know what to upgrade first, follow the starter path shown on the pickaxe. Hover over the pickaxe logo at the top of the menu for a list of recommendations!
After finishing the starter path, you can choose from a variety of upgrades. Read their descriptions and prioritize whatever fits your playstyle.
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It is recommended that you max out each starter path upgrade before moving to the next one.

Every Saturday, you can bid on 2 tags, 10 old seasonal crate items, an emoji and a cloud at /warp timetraveler. Bidding lasts 24 hours, and bid amounts are hidden from other players. You can raise your bid at any time during those 24 hours, but you can't lower or cancel it. If your bid doesn't win, it is refunded. The tiers of the seasonal items are randomized. Bids can only be placed with GC (/gc). If an item has multiple quantities, one is given to each of the top bidders. Once you win an item, claim it in the top right of the Time Traveler GUI. Every Week 1 item is a Guaranteed Max Tier item with only 1 given out (the item with the Nether Star).

Skull Island is the Complex Prison PvE and PvP zone, and one of the best ways to earn tokens, golden shards, experience and tomes. You can fight mobs, open treasure chests, join events, and trade your golden shards for loot at the merchant. Skull Island is very challenging, so make sure your armor is runed up before you go!
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To leave Skull Island, you must find one of the exit beacons located around the map. Use the in-game directional indicator to find the nearest one!

To enter Skull Island, use /warp skullisland (or /skull) to get to the cannon, then hop in. Skull Island opens 20 days into each season.
When you enter, you'll be placed on a Phantom. To start your journey, press shift (sneak) and you'll glide down to the ground.
Once you land, start grinding mobs for golden shards, experience and tokens! Skull Island has several tiers with different difficulty, limiters and loot. Use /skull to view all tiers!
To earn golden shards, use /upgrade on your sword and focus on Swindled Shards. To earn experience, use /upgrade on your sword and focus on Seafarer's Bounty. Every mob kill gives you tokens. You must leave Skull Island through an exit beacon to keep the tokens and shards you earned.
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It is crucial to /upgrade at least ONE level of Seafarer's Bounty and to upgrade MENDING on all of your armor. This keeps your armor from breaking while fighting mobs.

You can trade your golden shards at the Golden Merchant. Find him on the map to open his secret shop, which sells:​

Skull Island is mostly PvE, but a PvP Beacon enables player combat for 15 minutes within a 50-block radius. This lets players kill others for their contraband items (items marked as contraband, like golden shards, drop on death).
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If you die to a player or a mob, you lose all contraband items and tokens you earned.

Events happen on Skull Island every hour at :30, either Last Man Standing or an envoy! Winning them gets you rewards like golden shards and runes.

You and your gang can capture a pond on Skull Island by catching 75 fish at the Tier 2 pond or 100 at the Tier 3 pond. Ponds can be captured every 3 hours, and PvP is on within 30 blocks of a pond while it's unclaimed. Every capture gives your gang 600 Gang Top points and counts toward Pond Mastery, which unlocks rewards as your gang's total captures grow, from an Escapist Key and 128 Gold Shards at 1 capture up to a Pond Mastery Tag at 250. Run /ponds to see which gang controls each pond and whether it's claimable.
Treasure Chests spawn on Skull Island every 1 to 2 hours in different locations, and can be opened with a Treasure Key before they disappear. Treasure Keys are rare drops from Skull Island mobs and bosses. Rewards include Mana vouchers, shards, a temporarily upgraded pickaxe and more! See when the next treasure chest spawns with /treasurechest.​

Form one with your friends
Gangs on Complex Prison let you team up with your friends to compete for "gang top," with rewards given out every month.
Create a gang with /gang create <name>, invite your friends with /gang invite <username>, and join a gang with /gang join <gang name>. You can also use the GUI by running /gang. See the Prison Gangs Guide for every upgrade and gang level.
Once you're in a gang, run /gang to open the gang menu:
Golden Block: Share money with your gang by depositing into or withdrawing from the gang bank. Open it directly with /gang bank.
End Portal Frame: A Gang Private Mine that runs on Golden Shards, unlocked through Gang Upgrades.
Chest: Store valuables to share with your gang by clicking the chest or running /gang vault.
Crown: See the top 10 gangs by clicking the crown or running /gangtop.
At the end of each month, the top 10 gangs receive rewards. Run /gangtop and hover over the crown to see them!
Gang value resets every week, and again each month after monthly rewards are given out.
Emerald: Gang upgrades let you spend tokens on things like member limit, gang vault slots, gang bank limit, Skull Island mob resistance and Skull Island mob strength. Click the emerald or run /gang upgrades.
Ladder: Check your Gang Level progress by clicking the ladder or running /gang level. Every gang level you complete gives multiple rewards.
Compass: Daily gang missions are goals your gang works on together, and completing them rewards Gang Top Points. Weekly Gang Missions give every gang the same mission, and the first 3 gangs to finish earn Gang Top Points, Gang Boosters and a 1.25x Sell Booster (6 hours). Click the compass or run /gang missions.
Paper: Gang logs show who claimed milestones, deposited value crystals, added or took items from the gang vault, deposited or withdrew from the gang bank, contributed to upgrades, changed permissions, invited or kicked members, plus admin logs. Open them by clicking the paper in the /gang menu.
Command Block: In gang settings, you can change your gang name, gang color and secondary color, and toggle friendly fire.
Barrier Block: In gang permissions, you can control access to functions (like withdrawing from the bank) for each rank: visitor, recruit, member, moderator and admin.
Player Head: The member section lets you manage your gang's members, including changing ranks, setting titles and kicking players. Gangs start with 6 member slots, upgradeable to 7 (500,000 tokens at gang level 5) and 8 (2,500,000 tokens at gang level 8), plus a roster of 10 players who rotate in.
Door: Disband your gang by clicking the door or running /gang disband.
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All items and upgrades in /gang vault and /gang upgrades are lost when you disband!

Weekly leaderboards on Complex Prison reward players at the end of every week! You earn points by ranking at the top of tasks ranging from Most Ores Mined to Most Bosses Killed.
There are 23 categories in total. The top 10 in each category earn points based on their placement (Ex: #1 in a category gets 10 points, #10 gets 1).
Every week, 3 randomly selected categories are worth Double Points, making some categories more important than others. Leaderboards reward well-rounded players who are good at every part of the game mode.
The top 12 players with the most points at the end of the week receive rewards. See the full rewards with /lb!
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You can increase your leaderboard winnings by upgrading Leaderboard Payouts in Gang Upgrades.

Save your items for next season
Complex Prison runs in seasons. When a season ends, store your valuable items in the Reset Vault so they are transferred over to the next season. We announce on our Discord when the Reset Vault opens. Pickaxe upgrades and armor runes are not saved through the reset, so we suggest vaulting items like seasonal armor pieces and tags. Backpacks can be vaulted too, but they come back at level 1 and empty. See Prison Resets and the Reset Vault for the full list.
Claimed Tags, Pickaxe Skins and Ranks carry over automatically, along with everything in your Reset Vault.​

Leaking the New Meta to Become Rich! by Rawbie​

The IP is hub.mc-complex.com. It works on Minecraft Java Edition 1.8 through the latest release (latest recommended) and on Bedrock Edition, with Java and Bedrock crossplay.

There are 38 mines: 26 rank mines from A to Z plus 12 prestige mines.

Use /rankup or /rankupmax. Once you reach rank Z, use /prestige. Prestiging resets your letter rank but keeps your tokens and pickaxe.

Mine with the Lucky Mining enchant, open crates and lucky blocks, win Flash Mines, or kill mobs on Skull Island. Tokens can't be traded between players.

Skull Island is the Complex Prison PvE and PvP zone where you fight mobs for tokens, golden shards, experience and tomes. It opens 20 days into each season. Use /warp skullisland or /skull to get to the cannon that takes you in, and you must leave through an exit beacon to keep what you earned.

Ranks, claimed tags, pickaxe skins and everything stored in the Reset Vault carry over. Pickaxe upgrades and armor runes do not.

Prestige is unlimited in theory on Complex Prison, so there's always room to climb. Each prestige up to prestige 12 also unlocks a new prestige mine, for 12 prestige mines in total.

Yes, Complex Prison has a PvP Arena at /warp pvp, where envoys drop every hour. Skull Island also has PvP zones that players create with PvP Beacons. Keep inventory is on across Prison, except for contraband items (drops from Skull Island and other PvE), which you drop if you die in PvE.

Yes. Complex Prison is free to play. Ranks and crates are optional and available on the store.

Up to 8. Complex Prison gangs start with 6 member slots, upgradeable to 7 (500,000 tokens at gang level 5) and 8 (2,500,000 tokens at gang level 8), plus a roster of 10 players who rotate in.

Every hour on the hour. In a personal Flash Mine the top 3 players win tokens and a crate key, and in a gang Flash Mine the top 3 gangs win a 10%, 5% or 2.5% Gang Sell Booster and 250, 150 or 100 Gang Top points.

Type /plot create (or /plot) and pick Tropical Island or Grass Plot. Plots on Complex Prison are free. If you see "No plots currently available", try again after a reboot.

We hope this helps you get started on your journey to escape prison! If you have any more questions, ask the staff members online at the time or our helpful community, who can answer most of your questions!​

hub.mc-complex.com
Java 1.8 to the latest release (latest recommended), or Bedrock on port 19132
Use the compass or NPCs at the hub