The caves got another big update in Snapshot 21w08a. Grimstone is now officially called deepslate, and the ore distribution got a serious overhaul. Smooth basalt is in too. Lots of tweaking happening under the surface, quite literally.
What’s New in Snapshot 21w08a
Deepslate
Grimstone has been renamed to deepslate. It now has a proper top texture. When you mine deepslate, it drops cobbled deepslate instead. The cobbled version is what you use to craft all the deepslate variants, like deepslate bricks and deepslate tiles. Mining deepslate also has new crunchy sounds that are pretty satisfying.
Deepslate Ores
All the main ores now have deepslate versions. That’s iron, gold, lapis, redstone, and diamond ores. These spawn wherever their normal versions would sit in deepslate, but they’re twice as tough to mine. Mining at low Y levels just got a lot slower.
More Changes
- Cave sizes tweaked again
- Canyon and cave carvers now work below Y=0
- Cracks can be found carved into the ground
- Ore distribution tweaked further
- Andesite no longer generates under Y=0
- Tuff now sometimes generates under Y=0
- Amethyst geode tuff layer replaced with smooth basalt
- Smooth basalt can be obtained by smelting regular basalt
- Ore and blackstone textures tweaked again
- Mineshafts generate in caves again
- Spore blossoms now have particles floating around them
- Slime and honey blocks moved to redstone tab in creative
How to Install
Snapshots install through the official Minecraft launcher. Check out our full guide on how to download and install Minecraft snapshots for step-by-step instructions.