- For wooden slabs, see Wooden Slabs.
Slabs are highly blast-resistant blocks that measure half a block in height. They can be crafted, but they can also generate naturally in a variety of Generated Structures.
Mechanics[]
Slabs come in a variety of different types, based on the material of which they are made. There are 32 different materials which come in slab form:
- Sandstone
- Smooth Sandstone
- Cut Sandstone
- Red Sandstone
- Smooth Red Sandstone
- Red Cut Sandstone
- Cobblestone
- Oak
- Stone
- Brick
- Stone Brick
- Mossy Stone Brick
- Quartz
- Smooth Quartz
- Nether Brick
- Red Nether Brick
- Purpur Block
- Smooth Stone
- Granite
- Polished Granite
- Diorite
- Polished Diorite
- Andesite
- Polished Andesite
- End Stone Brick
- Mossy Cobblestone
- Prismarine
- Dark Prismarine
- Prismarine Brick
- Blackstone
- Polished Blackstone
- Cut Copper
- Deepslate
Two slabs can be stacked to make a block of regular height. When two slabs of the same material are stacked on top of one another, some varieties appear as if they were a full-sized block, but other varieties appear unmistakably as individual slabs.
Slabs have a unique quality when it comes to the Spawning of Mobs. A slab placed as the bottom half of a block will not allow any mobs to spawn on top of it, whereas a slab placed as the top half of a block will follow normal mob-spawning rules. This quality is useful when trying to make areas where no mobs can spawn, as a player can cover the entire surface of a room with slabs that are a half a block high, and no mobs will spawn in that room, regardless of whether the room is lit.
Redstone placed on top of slabs, like when placed on Glowstone, cannot power a redstone wire diagonally downwards, but can be powered by that redstone wire. It also does not obstruct redstone currents in the way that solid blocks do.
Slabs can be crafted in stacks of six, by combining three identical "full-sized" blocks (one of the 10 different types of material). Make a horizontal line of the desired materials in a Crafting Table.
Slab x6 (Possible materials listed above) | ||
---|---|---|
None | None | None |
None | None | None |
Material | Material | Material |
History[]
- Stone slabs were introduced to the game on October 24, 2009, in Survival Test (0.26).
- Sandstone, Wood, and Cobblestone slabs were added in the Beta 1.3 update on February 22, 2011.
- Stone brick and brick slabs were added in the Beta 1.8 update on September 15, 2011.
- Red Sandstone slabs were added in Minecraft 1.8 update (Snapshot 14w32a, August 6, 2014).
- In 1.14, the current stone slab is renamed to smooth stone slab and must be crafted by the same recipe with smooth stone blocks.
- Other slabs were released during the 1.14 - Village and Pillage update like diorite, granite, andesite, etc.
Trivia[]
- Despite the fact that sneaking lowers a players' eye level to 1.5 blocks high, doing so does not allow a player to walk over a single slab with one block of air above it. This is not true in Java Edition.
- Back in Survival Test, Notch tested Dirt slabs. These were never added to the game.
- Stone slabs with a data value of "3" are the oak slab listed above. These are different from regular Wooden Slabs, as they are unobtainable without Commands; they also have the same blast resistance as other stone slabs.
- In the Joke Update, Minecraft 2.0, a new slab known as the Etho Slab was added. The name is a reference to the Minecraft YouTuber, EthosLab. This TNT slab version has a larger blast radius, and if a player is close enough, it will spawn an Anvil above them upon detonating.
- The bottom of Ender Crystals appears to be Bedrock slabs.
- Armor Stands require 1 stone slab to craft.
- This requires a smooth stone slab to craft in 1.14.
- In previous versions, wooden slabs were required to be mined with a pickaxe.
- Slabs are half-textures of blocks.
- The Smooth Stone Slab doesn't look like a full slab.