ENCHANTED DIAMOND SHOVEL

This is the cheapest of the three items on the Toolsmith's diamond shelf, 10 to 24 emeralds against what the axe and the pickaxe both ask, and the one most players walk straight past on their way to buying either of the other two. A shovel earns its keep on Efficiency or Silk Touch, the same two enchantments that make the pickaxe worth buying, without the fighting-shaped upside an axe carries on the side.

It unlocks a tier earlier than the pickaxe does, which makes it the first piece of the Toolsmith's diamond gear most villagers offer at all. Cheap and early is not the same as essential, though: outside of a gravel or sand highway, a shovel does far less for a player's progression than a pickaxe or an axe ever will.

Whatever it rolls arrives finished, no enchanting table and no combining two mediocre rolls on an anvil required.

The Toolsmith is the only seller, from expert onward, for 10 to 24 emeralds, the lowest floor of anything he offers in diamond. No other profession touches diamond gear, so there is no second price to compare his against.

Enchanted Diamond Shovel sells for anywhere between 10 and 24 emeralds, from the Toolsmith at the Expert tier, and 8 of the other 11 cost less. That is a rolled price rather than a fixed one, so the Toolsmith you happen to find matters more than the tier does.

The Toolsmith at its expert tier asks 10 emeralds for an enchanted diamond shovel, on its cheapest roll. 8 of the 72 villagers that pay emeralds, emptied out:

10 jungle boats against 320 sticks for the same 10 emeralds, 32 times the carrying, and the shortest wait is the Fisherman at 6.3 real minutes of shelf, gathering not counted.

A smithing table next to an unemployed villager claims the Toolsmith job for him. The shovel opens up at expert, a tier earlier than the pickaxe, which still means clearing every rung below it with real trades before it appears.

The enchantment is decided the moment he restocks, not the moment you buy, so a better roll means finding a different villager rather than reopening the same trade window twice. Break his smithing table before your first purchase and it rerolls; do it after, and the shovel he offered is the one that stays. How re-rolling works.

Buying it pays 15 experience toward the tier above, and 7 uses of just this offer would clear that gap on their own.

3 shovels and the slot locks, and the Toolsmith needs 2 real minutes back at his smithing table before it fills again. A Minecraft day runs 20 real minutes and holds exactly two of those refills, so two full slots is the most any one villager offers in a day.

Clear both and the total lands between 60 and 144 emeralds for 6 shovels, the cheapest full-day haul on his diamond shelf by a wide margin. That makes it the least expensive way on his sheet to buy several tries at a good roll.

Fund it the way the Toolsmith prefers: he pays an emerald for a single diamond, which covers this trade directly instead of routing through some other villager's goods.

Since he is already levelled this far, his sheet is worth checking for enchanted diamond pickaxe one tier up, plus coal, stone axe, stone shovel, stone pickaxe and stone hoe.

Efficiency on a shovel is the difference between digging a foundation in an afternoon and digging it in a minute. Dirt, sand and gravel come apart almost instantly with a good roll, which is why builders buy shovels while fighters ignore them.

Silk Touch is the other roll that changes what the tool does: it takes gravel as gravel rather than rolling for flint, and it collects snow blocks and clay in one piece. Fortune does the opposite, more flint and more clay balls, so the two rolls suit different jobs.

Silk Touch is the enchantment that changes what a shovel can pick up rather than how fast it works. Grass blocks, mycelium, podzol and gravel all come back as themselves instead of as dirt or flint, and there is no other way to move mycelium at all.

That makes a Silk Touch shovel the tool behind a mushroom farm and behind any build that wants real grass rather than dirt with grass grown on it.

Fortune does the opposite on the same tool: on gravel it pushes every block towards flint, which is the fastest arrow supply in the game.