POLISHED ANDESITE

Andesite itself is a blend, 1 diorite and 1 cobblestone crafted together, and polishing it is a second step on top of that. The Mason skips both: hand over an emerald at journeyman and 4 finished blocks come back, no stonecutter queue and no need to have gathered either ingredient yourself.

Of the three polished stones on his list, this is the muted one, grey enough to sit next to plain stone and cobblestone without announcing itself. That is usually the actual reason to buy it: matching an existing build rather than needing the block for its own sake.

One offer, one villager type. A Mason reaches it at journeyman, priced flat at 1 emerald for 4, with no second source anywhere in the profession list to compare it against.

The number does not move between villagers either: every mason who has reached this tier quotes exactly the same 1 emerald, so there is no haggling to be had by visiting a second one, only more stock.

Polished Andesite sells for as little as 1 emerald for 4 at a time, from the Mason at the Journeyman tier, and 5 of the other 9 cost less. The price is fixed rather than rolled, so a second Mason will quote you exactly the same.

The Mason at its journeyman tier asks 1 emerald for 4 polished andesite. 8 of the 72 villagers that pay emeralds, emptied out:

a dark oak boat against 26 potatoes for the same 1 emerald, 26 times the carrying, and the shortest wait is the Fisherman at 37.5 real seconds of shelf, gathering not counted.

Give an unemployed villager a stonecutter and he becomes a Mason. From there he climbs the same five tiers every profession has, and this particular offer only opens up at journeyman, level 3 of five, which costs 70 trading experience to reach from scratch.

Once he is there, the offer holds 16 uses before it locks, and restocking needs him back at his stonecutter, up to twice a Minecraft day. Nothing about the recipe or the price changes once he has unlocked it, so the only real work is getting him to journeyman in the first place and keeping his workstation intact once he is there.

One slot holds 16 uses, 2 real minutes apart from a restock, 16 clicks then a wait. A Minecraft day runs 20 real minutes and fits two of those refills, so 32 uses is the daily ceiling from a single mason.

That is 128 blocks of polished andesite for 32 emeralds across 20 minutes of real time, if you are there for every restock. Leave him alone for a few days and the emeralds wait for you; the offer does not expire between visits.

Clear the shelf in one visit: 16 uses at 1 emerald each buys 64 blocks before he needs to restock.

Fund it from the same villager if you can. The Mason also buys 10 clay balls for an emerald, which turns a stack you dug out of a riverbed into the currency this offer eats.

Also on the Mason's list: polished granite, polished diorite, dripstone block, nether quartz, colored terracotta, and glazed terracotta.

Andesite is the speckled grey stone everybody digs through and nobody wants. Polished, it goes flat and even, and turns into the most neutral grey building block in the game, one that sits next to almost anything without arguing.

Four andesite give four polished, so nothing is lost, and a stonecutter does the same job while also cutting slabs and stairs from it without waste. Six polished give six slabs, six give four stairs on the grid.

Where it beats stone is that it never turns into cobblestone. Andesite mines into itself, so a wall of it survives being taken down and put back up.