Planning Mining Trips Around Stone and Deepslate Layers

With regular stone ores dropping normal amounts and deepslate ores dropping double, choosing what depth to mine at becomes a trade-off between digging speed and reward per vein.

When to Mine Regular Stone

1. Stick to upper caves and regular stone levels early in a world when you only have Wooden or Stone Pickaxes and limited food.

2. Mine exposed coal, copper, and iron in stone to quickly assemble basic armor and an Iron Pickaxe without dealing with slower block-breaking speeds.

3. Transition away from upper stone levels as soon as you have iron gear, since stone ores only provide single drops.

Transitioning to Deep Mining

1. Bring extra torches, food, and weapons before descending into the deepslate layer, where caves are darker and mining takes longer.

2. Focus your branch mining or cave exploration strictly within deepslate once you are hunting diamonds, redstone, gold, or large iron veins.

3. Ignore isolated regular stone ore pockets near the transition boundary if deepslate veins are visible nearby, prioritizing the darker ore blocks for twice the payout per pickaxe durability spent.

4. Upgrade to an Efficiency-enchanted Diamond or Netherite Pickaxe as soon as your doubled diamond drops allow it, removing the slower mining penalty of deepslate entirely.