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Mountains, however, throw us a curveball. As a result, for many biomes, iron has the highest odds of spawning at Y=16. Iron ore becomes increasingly more likely to spawn between Y=-24 and Y=56 as you approach Y=16. There’s a decent chance of getting iron between levels 72 and -64, but there are extra factors now. It didn’t matter what height you were at as long as there was earth on that level.
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Iron used to appear consistently between Y=0 and Y=60. What is the Best Level/Height to Find Iron? That means you’ll need to target different world heights for the various materials going forward. In an attempt to make things more diverse and reward the exploration of different biomes, Mojang has completely rebalanced ore generation.
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That’s a whole lot of new blocks to fill! Y=0 is no longer roughly the layer of bedrock. The build height is now 320 with blocks found as high as 256. Let’s dig into the changes and explain where iron is now found. However, all of this has changed with the release of Minecraft 1.18. There was no variety in block height aside from the much newer copper, which was more likely to be found around Y=48. That’s because, in the old system, diamond, redstone, iron, lapis lazuli, and gold were all found in significant quantities at this one level. Dig down to about Y=11 and build a branch mine with two rows of blocks between each tunnel.
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