In Minecraft, villagers are incredibly useful for trading, especially when it comes to getting emeralds. There are 13 different villager professions, and many of their trades revolve around emeralds.
However, in Minecraft 1.21, obtaining emeralds has become a bit more difficult due to changes like the nerfing of raid farms. You also can’t use the old bookshelf trick, where you could buy a bookshelf, break it into three books, and sell those books for 3 emeralds. That was essentially an infinite emerald glitch, but it’s been fixed in 1.21.
Thankfully, there are still plenty of great trades that can get you lots of emeralds, and I’ll guide you through the best ones.
5. Mason Villager Trades
First, after placing down the stone cutter, we get the Mason villager, who will give us emeralds for stone, granite, andesite, and diorite. You can trade 16 of those blocks for 1 emerald, except for stone, which will be 20 stone for 1 emerald.
If you’ve been mining a lot, then you probably have chests full of those blocks, so getting emeralds for those is a pretty good deal.
4. Farmer Villager Trades
Another great trade is with the Farmer villager. By placing a composter, you can create a Farmer who will trade crops like wheat, potatoes, carrots, and beetroot for emeralds. All of these can be automatically farmed pretty easily. The farmer will trade 20 wheat, 15 beetroot, 26 potatoes, and 22 carrots each for 1 emerald.
3. Weaponsmith/ Toolsmith Villager Trades
When you happen to have an iron farm that produces a ton of iron, then I recommend getting a villager with a grindstone or a smithing table. With the Weaponsmith and Toolsmith villagers, you are getting a chance to sell iron for emeralds. You will trade 4 Iron Ingots for 1 emerald, which isn’t a bad deal at all.
2. Shepherd Villager Trades
Giving a loom to an unemployed villager will make him a Shepherd, who trades all kinds of dyes for emeralds. You will need to trade 12 dyes for 1 emerald. Some of these dyes are pretty easy to obtain. Red dye can be obtained from poppies, which you can get from many iron farms, and green dye can be easily obtained from a cactus farm.
1. Fletcher Villager Trades
You also have the Fletcher villager. The Fletcher is created using a fletching table. He will trade 14 strings for 1 emerald. The best part about this trade is that string can be duplicated, essentially giving you an infinite supply of emeralds.
1 Cost Emerald Price Trick
All of these trades are pretty expensive, and to get the prices down, there is a simple trick. Let the zombie get close to a villager; he will then turn the villager into a zombified villager. Then, give the zombified villager a weakness potion and a golden apple.
It takes around 3-5 minutes, and the villager will go back to normal. Because you were so kind and cured him, he will thank you by lowering his prices. You can use this to get better prices for everything, but keep in mind that it only works 100% of the time when you are playing in Hard mode. In Normal mode is 50% and it does not work in Easy mode.
Final Thoughts
These were just a few of the powerful trades that can help you gather emeralds in Minecraft 1.21+. Keep these trades in mind as you play, and make sure to use the zombification trick to get the best prices possible!
