Infested Block

Infested blocks are blocks disguised as stone, cobblestone, deepslate, or any stone bricks variants, but spawn silverfish when broken in Survival or Adventure mode.

Obtaining

Infested blocks are not obtainable by Silk Touch, and are only available through the Creative inventory or commands. However, they can be retained from worlds played in versions where they were legitimately obtainable.

Breaking

When the block is broken, whether by a player or by an explosion, a silverfish spawns where it was broken unless the difficulty is Peaceful or gamerule doTileDrops is false (gamerule doMobSpawning is irrelevant).

Infested blocks take less time to break than their normal counterparts. When breaking them with a pickaxe, they take half as much time to break as their normal counterparts.

When mined with a tool not enchanted with Silk Touch, an infested block drops nothing and spawns a silverfish that immediately attacks the player. If the player attacks a silverfish directly with a sword, bow, or potion of Harming, or when a silverfish takes Poison damage, nearby infested blocks break, spawning more aggressive silverfish. If the silverfish is killed in one hit, then nearby infested blocks do not break, and no silverfish spawn from them.

When mined with a tool enchanted with Silk Touch, however, the equivalent non-infested block is dropped without spawning a silverfish on all game difficulties.^[1] Any Silk Touch-enchanted tool (including swords) will cause an infested block to drop its non-infested equivalent (that is, a pickaxe is not required). A player wishing to collect stone bricks from a stronghold safely should use Silk Touch-enchanted pickaxes.

Natural generation

Infested stone bricks are occasionally found in strongholds and igloo basements in place of normal stone bricks. Infested mossy and chiseled stone bricks also spawn in igloos, but they do not generate naturally in strongholds.^[2]

Infested cobblestone is found in the rarely generated "End portal" room in woodland mansions.

Blobs

Infested stone can generate in the Overworld in the form of blobs. Infested stone attempts to generate 14 times per chunk in blobs of size 0-13, from altitudes 0 to 63, within one of the following biomes, or within a chunk that is at least partially occupied by one of these biomes:

• Windswept Gravelly Hills
• Windswept Hills
• Windswept Forest
• Meadow
• Grove
• Snowy Slopes
• Jagged Peaks
• Frozen Peaks
• Stony Peaks

Infested stone can replace stone, granite, diorite, andesite, tuff, and deepslate. If it replaces tuff or deepslate, it will become infested deepslate.

Post-generation

Infested blocks are generated when a silverfish enters the respective normal block form. In Bedrock Edition, letting a silverfish enter regular stone bricks turns them into infested stone instead of the infested stone bricks.^[3]

Usage

When mined, an infested block spawns a silverfish that immediately attacks the player. If the player attacks a silverfish directly with a sword, bow, or potion of Harming, or when a silverfish takes poison damage, nearby infested blocks break, spawning more aggressive silverfish. If the silverfish is killed in one hit, then nearby infested blocks do not break, and no silverfish spawn from them.

Identifying

Note blocks placed on infested blocks produce flute sounds‌^{[Bedrock Edition only]} or harp sounds‌^{[Java Edition only]}, while those placed on the non-infested stone, cobblestone, or stone bricks produce bass drum sounds.

In Bedrock Edition, a player can distinguish infested from normal blocks by observing that an infested block takes a bit faster to break when using a pickaxe than the stone it appears to be, but without a pickaxe, it still breaks faster.

A silverfish does not spawn if the block is destroyed by the ender dragon.

In Java Edition, using the debug screen, a player can identify whether or not a block is infested.

Sounds

Stone

Java Edition:

Bedrock Edition:

Deepslate

Java Edition:

Bedrock Edition:

Data values

ID

Java Edition:

Bedrock Edition:

Block states

Bedrock Edition:
Infested Deepslate:

Others:

History

Issues

Issues relating to "Infested Block" or "Monster Egg" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.

Trivia

• Despite silverfish being able to infest cobblestone, stone bricks, and mossy stone bricks, they cannot infest mossy cobblestone.^[5]

References

External Links

• Block of the Month: Infested Block – Minecraft.net on January 26, 2023