Taking Inventory: Slab

Minecraft is all about blocks, but sometimes a block is just a little bit too much. Sometimes a player needs less than a block – maybe half a block? – when doing the details on creative builds or architectural work. If that sounds like you, then I’ve got great news. Our item-of-the-month is the slab, and this article is dedicated to everyone who loves these flexible friends!

Slabs got their start way back in May 2009 when Mojang were thinking of adding “half-height tiles for stairs”. Stone slabs landed a few months later, in October 2009, as part of an update called 0.26 SURVIVAL TEST – we didn’t give our patches fancy names back then.

Originally slabs were generated when coal ore was mined, but in January the following year – when crafting was added to the game – they got a recipe. That’s more or less the same recipe they have now: three cobblestone in a row will get you a slab. Well, actually it’ll get you six slabs. They can also be made through stonecutting.

Don’t think that you’re limited to stone. A year after slabs made their first appearance, wooden, cobblestone and sandstone slabs were added, followed by brick and stone brick, followed by all the different types of wood, followed by nether brick, quartz, and purpur over time.

But it was the Village & Pillage update when the floodgates really opened – 14 new types of slab were added in that patch, and more have been added since. Today there are a frankly astonishing 61 different kinds of slabs in Minecraft. You could pick one to build with each week and you’d still be going more than a year later.

Got some? Great! Time to experiment. Try placing one on the ground. Nice. Now try placing one on the ceiling. Cool, right? Slabs can live in either the top or the bottom half of a block, or both. They can only be placed horizontally, though – there are no vertical slabs.

Slabs’ slightly strange nature enables some cool applications – a single slab is transparent to light and to items falling into a hopper. Mobs can’t spawn on bottom slabs, making a slab roof great if you don’t want beasties spawning up there in the night. Slabs also absorb explosions remarkably well. Oh, and players can sneak under a ceiling slab with a 1.5 block gap beneath it. Experiment and you’ll find plenty more.

Slabs are found all over the place in the real world, even more so than in Minecraft. Large flat surfaces made of stone formed some of the first tables, the first flooring, and even early wall coverings, animal traps, gravestones, and cooking surfaces.

Today, they’re still used widely in construction and in paving – usually in the form of concrete. Steel-reinforced slabs of concrete are often used to build floors and ceilings in larger buildings, with concrete poured into molds and hardening either in place or in a factory, with the resulting slabs then transported to the site.  

In Minecraft, most of the time you don’t need to make your slabs in a factory – you can just put down a crafting bench right there. But hey, don’t let us stop you if you want to produce an enormous factory that churns out every single one of the 61 different kinds of slab. Just make sure you send us a picture of the final construction!