How to Get Clay in Minecraft

There are 3 different ways to obtain clay in the Java edition of Minecraft, and 2 different ways to obtain clay in the Bedrock edition of Minecraft. For Java and Bedrock, you can expect to find clay in rivers and shallow lakes. Clay will typically only spawn near, or in, water. Look around watery areas of your map to find this grayish block.

For both Bedrock and the Java edition, you can also find clay balls in a desert house chest or a stone mason’s chest. To easily differentiate between the villager’s houses, look for a stonecutter to determine whether that house is the stone mason’s house or not. If you are searching in deserts, clay balls can generate in their house chests.

If you have the hero of the village effect by defeating a raid, you can also get clay balls as a present from stone masons. This can only occur on the Java edition of Minecraft.

Regardless, you ought to find clay on your own. The other methods of finding clay are inconsistent at best, and clay is relatively common to find.

Clay has a multitude of uses in Minecraft. First, let’s look at what you can do with clay balls. If you are interested in building out of bricks you can cook clay balls in a furnace to make bricks. These bricks do not do much on their own, but with enough bricks you can unlock certain recipes.

With 4 bricks you can make a brick block by arranging bricks in a 2x2 form in a crafting menu.

If you are looking for a way to spruce up the interior of a home or a building, you can build a flower pot with 3 bricks. Place the bricks in a “V” shape to make a flower pot. You can plant saplings, cacti, flowers, and tall grass in these flower pots to add a little life and dimension to your builds.

Of course, if you are not interested in the availability of bricks, you can also use 4 clay balls to make a clay block. Place 4 clay balls in a 2x2 arrangement in your crafting menu to make a clay block. This will function identically to a regular clay block, but you have some crafting recipes open to you as well.

Cooking a clay block will provide you with terracotta. You can color groups of 8 terracotta with any available dyes to stain the terracotta.

While the terracotta looks great on its own, or in its stained variety, you can also cook dyed terracotta to make glazed terracotta.

It is worth noting that using a fortune-enchanted tool to harvest clay does not get more clay balls to drop. While it fits within the parameters of fortune, it does not allow for extra clay balls to drop. Conversely, you can still use silk touch tools to obtain a block of clay to skip the step of turning clay balls into clay blocks.

Is Clay Rare in Minecraft?

Clay is about as rare as shallow lakes and rivers are in your world. That being said, it is fairly common and it is not very difficult to find a lot of clay. Clay may be rare because players often avoid gathering clay until they need it for a build, but that does not necessarily mean that clay is hard to find.

Can you Buy Clay from Villagers?

You cannot buy clay from villagers. You can sell clay to villagers with the stonemason profession. They will purchase 10 clay balls for 1 emerald. While this seems like a decent deal, it can be difficult to find an infinite amount of clay. You are better off using fish, sticks, or other near-infinite sources of items for your emerald trades rather than using clay balls.

Congratulations, you now know how to get clay in Minecraft as well as the uses that clay provides. It is a fairly versatile block considering the recipe chains you can pull off with clay. Since Minecraft is a creative game, having a block like clay is a blessing for many builders. Having the freedom to build with brick textures or the thesmooth-coloredd variants of terracotta can help you get the exact look you envisioned. Since it is relatively common, you ought to get as much clay as you can find.