Amethyst – Everything you need to know about it (1.17+)
Minecraft Amethyst just got released in 1.17. It’s a new mineral which can only craft certain items.
The amethyst cluster block itself in any of its growth stages (rather than its amethyst shard drops) can be obtained by mining it with any pickaxe with the Silk Touch enchantment. When mined using any other tool with the Silk Touch enchantment, it drops nothing. When mined without Silk Touch or broken by being pushed off an attached block by a piston or sticky piston, only fully grown amethyst clusters drop amethyst shards, while amethyst buds drop nothing. Breaking an amethyst cluster with a pickaxe drops 4 shards while any other method of breaking it gives you 2. Fortune I gives you a 1/3 chance to get 8 shards, Fortune II gives a 25% for 8 or 12 shards, and Fortune III gives a 20% chance to get 8, 12 or 16 shards.
Geodes:
Amethyst geodes generate commonly between Y=0 and Y=70. They are the only place to find amethyst in vanilla survival. Each chunk has a 1/53 chance to generate a geode. Rarely (but possible), they generate exposed to the surface. Amethyst geodes consist of three layers: an outer layer of smooth basalt, a middle layer of calcite, and a hollow layer of amethyst blocks.
Uses:
Amethyst can be used for decoration, or to craft things like spyglasses (kinda like a telescope which is useless if you have optifine, which in that case you can just use optifine zoom) or tinted glass (which is wayyyy to overpriced) which is glass which you can see through, but light can’t pass through (maybe useful if you want to see the inside of your mob farm without it breaking?). It can also be used as a form of in-game currency to trade with players.
Article by @Adefeater
