Welcome to my second blog! This one is different from my first, as I will be going over the content found in {all} the Minecraft Java 1.17 snapshots, individually.
NOTE:
I will only be going over new features and major bug fixes, and not minor bug fixes or technical changes (new commands will be found here, but syntax and parameter changes will not be listed!) In addition, every time a new snapshot is added, I will update this blog as soon as possible!

That being said, let's get started!

20w45a

First of the Java 1.17 snapshots, this caused a lot of excitement.

FEATURES:

- Amethyst Geodes
- Amethyst Crystals
- Bundles
- Candles
- Lava Cauldron
- Copper Blocks
- Lightning Rod
- Spyglass
- Tinted Glass
- Tuff & Calcite
- Underwater Minecarts

Let's get into some more details...

Amethyst Geodes:
Amethyst Geodes are a new underground structure, which will randomly generate in your world, of which there are new blocks included (Amethyst Crystals, Tuff, Calcite, Amethyst Block, Budding Amethyst Block)

Bundles:
An 'early game' storage solution allowing you to store up to 64 items in a slot. However, you can put any stackable item in it (for example, 32 iron blocks and 32 emerald blocks) and store more than one type of block in it.

Candles:
A new light source that can be placed anywhere (even in the air! {however, you have to pillar up to the block you wish to have the candle in and place it, then remove the pillar}) (including cake!) and has a variable light level. For example, having one candle in the same block has the least light, and four in one block has the most. (It acts like sea pickles and turtle eggs, they can be combined up to 4 in a single block.)

Lava Cauldron:
Allows you to put lava in a cauldron.

Copper {Ore & Blocks}:
Ore: A new kind of ore, redish, that spawns in the world (spawning subject to change)
Blocks: New kinds of slabs, stairs, and blocks. However, as they get older, they turn more green.

Lightning Rod:
WIll draw any lightning nearby into it, powering redstone and keeping fire from being created (especially useful for wooden houses {or, as stated in the Minecraft Livestream, wool roofs})

Spyglass:
The spyglass is a new item which will allow you to zoom in without Optifine. However, there is a very heavy black circle around it, limiting it's view. However, turning off your HUD (default key: F1) will hide this and show more of the world around you zoomed in.

Tinted Glass:
A new kind of glass, which doesn't let much light through. It is dark and has a sheen on it, separating it from the other kinds of glass.

Underwater Minecarts:
A new feature which allows you to place rails underwater, allowing you to ride an underwater railway. (Note: In survival, you will still drown)


20w46a

The second snapshot for the 1.17 update, adding less features then the first, but it is still an exciting update.

FEATURES:

- New Bundle HUD
- Powdery Snow (Snowier Snow)
- Freezing
- Snow Cauldrons
- "Item" Command

Let's go into more detail...

New Bundle HUD:
The Bundle preview HUD (where it shows the blocks inside) has been changed to a better version, showing the block types separated.

Snowier Snow:
A trap block that an entity will sink into and take freeze damage.

Freezing:
A new feature where if the player/entity falls into powdered snow they will take damage.

Snow Cauldrons:
When left out in snow, Cauldrons will fill with powdered snow, which can be picked up with a bucket (and presumably can be used to extinguish fire.)

Item Command:
This replaces the ReplaceItem command.


20w48a

FEATURES:

- Bundle Changes
- Candle Changes
- Snowier Snow Changes
- Redone Textures
- Dripstone & Pointed Dripstone

Bundle Changes:
Additional functionality has been added to Bundles. Right clicking spits the items out / places them into a slot.

Candle Changes:
You can now only place candles on whole blocks (DON'T WORRY, WE STILL HAVE FLOATING CANDLES!)

Snowier Snow Changes:
Added the leather damage reduction feature.

Texture Changes:
Self explanatory.

Dripstone & Pointed Dripstone:
New blocks that when (respectively) a mob falls on them, it does damage, and when the block it is attached to is broken, it falls.

20w49a

FEATURES:

- Dripstone Caves
- Skulk Sensor
- Vibration 'Frequency'
- Wool occlusion

Dripstone Caves:
The Dripstone Caves are here! However, they don't spawn by default. You have to tell the world to only generate Dripstone Caves under the customization options.

Skulk Sensor:
It's here! The Skulk Sensor detects vibrations, and outputs a variable redstone output.

Vibration Frequency:
A feature that allows the Skulk Sensor to output variable levels of redstone signal depending on the detected actions.


Wool Occlusion:
A block effect that prevents vibrations from reaching a Skulk sensor if the Skulk Sensor's line-of-sight is blocked by wool.

20W51A

FEATURES:

- Axolotl!

Axolotols:
They are an amphibious creature that loves tropical fish. You can breed Axolotls using buckets of tropical fish. They will swim with you if you're holding a tropical fish or a tropical fish bucket! You can pick them up with buckets to transport them easier. They will take damage after about 5 minutes of being out of water (this will not happen in the rain!) There are 5 varieties of Axolotls, 4 normal, 1 rare. However, they don't spawn just yet.

Changes:
Bundles and shulker boxes drop their items when destroyed.

Sculk sensor changes:
- Starting to eat doesn't trigger a sensor anymore
- Walking on wool doesn't trigger sensors
- Throwing wool do not trigger sensors
- Sculk sensors are silent when waterlogged

Technical changes:

"Added gamerule playersSleepingPercentage (100 by default), which sets what percentage of players must sleep to skip the night. Setting to 0 will mean 1 player is always enough to skip the night. Setting above 100 will prevent skipping the night." (Minecraft.net change log)

21W03A

FEATURES:

- Glow squid
- Glow lichen

Glow Lichen:
This is a new light source that grows in caves. You can use shears to gather it and use bonemeal to grow it.

Glow Squid:
Bright new mob that can be seen from far distances. Killing one will make it drop a glow ink sac. You can use the ink sac to make signs glow and to make glow item frames. Axolotls will attack glow squids.

Changes:
Dripstone blocks crafted from 4 pointed dripstone.

21W05A

FEATURES:

- Azalea bushes
- Cave vines
- Glow berries
- Drip leaves
- Hanging roots, rooted dirt
- Moss
- Spore blossom

Cave vines:
Cave vines grow down from the ceiling and have a chance of growing glow berries.

Glow berries:
Natural, edible, light source. Foxes will eat glow berries. You can use glow berries to plant new cave vines. Use bonemeal on a cave vine to grow glow berries.

Dripleaf:
Small dripleaf will only grow on clay or underwater. Big dripleaf will grow taller if you use bonemeal. If you stand on a big dripleaf, it will tilt and you will fall off. However, you can crouch or jump to not fall off. They will return to their untilted form after a moment. Big dripleaf will break if hit by a projectile such as an arrow.

Moss:
New decorative block! Moss blocks and moss carpets! Moss carpets can be crafted from moss blocks.

Spore blossom:
A new flower that grows from ceilings. It will emit particles.

Note from Quip: I AM NOT TYPING THIS BIT SO YOU GET A SCREENSHOT FROM MINECRAFT.NET INSTEAD!




21W05b

FEATURES:

IMPORTANT NOTE: YOU WILL BE UNABLE TO OPEN OLD WORLDS ON THIS VERSION DUE TO THE NEW WORLD HEIGHT!!!

- Noise caves
- Aquifers

I'm going to copy/paste this from the website:

• Noise caves are a new way of generating caves, providing more natural variety. They can get really huge sometimes!
  Noise caves come in two flavors:
  • Cheese caves. Like the holes in swiss cheese. These often form caverns of various sizes.
  • Spaghetti caves. Long squiggly tunnels, sometimes wide like tagliatelle.
• No, they aren’t loud. The “noise” part of noise caves is a technical term and has nothing to do with sound.
• The old cave carvers and canyons still generate, combining with the noise caves to form interesting cave systems.
• As with carvers, when noise caves intersect the surface they form cave entrances.
• An aquifer is an area with local water level, independent of sea level. Aquifers are used during world generation to generate bodies of water inside noise caves. This sometimes results in large underground lakes!
• For now, aquifers are only used below y31. This means all noise caves between y31 and sea level (y63) will be flooded with water, and noise cave entrances will essentially be lakes. This will be fixed later.
• Magma sometimes generates at the bottom of underground bodies of water.
• Underwater cave carvers and underwater canyons have been removed since aquifers are used to generate water in caves instead.

(Minecraft.net)




21W07A

FEATURES:

- Grimstone

Grimstone is a new type of stone similar to Blackstone and can be used like normal stone to craft basic tools and other stone based blocks and items.
Grimstone blocks (Minecraft.net):

• Grimstone Slab
• Grimstone Stairs
• Grimstone Wall
• Polished Grimstone
• Polished Grimstone Slab
• Polished Grimstone Stairs
• Polished Grimstone Wall
• Grimstone Bricks
• Grimstone Brick Slab
• Grimstone Brick Stairs
• Grimstone Brick Wall
• Grimstone Tiles
• Grimstone Tile Slab
• Grimstone Tile Stairs
• Grimstone Tile Wall
• Chiselled Grimstone

Changes:
- Tweaked world gen and ores
- Changed visuals of some ores/stones
- Reordered redstone tab (Creative)

WGen:
Huge caves are more rare, less chance of being full of water
- New ore generation for new world height, and new strategy mining.

Visuals:
- Ores have been given new textures for accessibility reasons (excluding Diamond Ore)
- Stones have had some minor touch-ups.

CInventory:
- Highly used blocks are now at the top.
- New order (Minecraft.net)
Redstone items/blocks have been grouped and ordered in the following way:

• Essentials
• Unique activators
• Miscellaneous
• Common activators
• Openables

21W08a

Changes:

- Tweaked caves
- Cracks can now be found
- Grimstone has been changed to "Deepslate"
- Deepslate ores added
- Ore distribution changed
- Tuff layer on amethyst geodes has been replaced with Smooth Basalt
- Smooth basalt is now gotten via smelting Basalt
- More tweaking
- Ore touch-ups
- Mineshaft gen changed
- Spore blossom particle changed
- Slime/Honey blocks moved to "Redstone" in cinventory.

Deepslate:
- Cobbled deepslate drops (like stone/cobblestone)
- All deepslate variants from COBBLED deepslate

Deepslate ores:
- Deepslate versions of iron, gold, lapis, redstone, and diamond ores.
- Twice as hard as normal ore.


21W10a

Features:

- Lush caves
- Cracked deepslate bricks/tiles
- Infested deepslate
- Deepslate copper, emerald, and coal ores (will not generate in the world my default)

Lush Caves:
- Moss floors and ceilings
- Spore blossoms grow
- Contains clay pools
- Azailea bushes
- Azalea trees will mark this biome
- Cave vines

Changes:

- Cobbled deepslate can be smelted into deepslate
- Lightning rods can be waterlogged
- Fossils in the deep underground generate with Deepslate Diamond Ore
- Textures changed.



21W11a

Features:

- Lightning rods can be waterlogged
- New wax functionality for copper
- Bonemealing rooted dirt will grow hanging roots below.

Changes:
- Can craft 4 copper ingots from Waxed Copper Blocks
- Tweaked caves
- (Slightly) Increased Diamond Ore blobs
- Hanging roots block renders randomly offset
- Breaking Big Dripleaf Stem drops Big Dripleaf Block
- Moss Blocks can be crafted with cobblestone/stone bricks to make mossy versions
- Direction of Small Dripleaf Blocks is determined by the where the player is facing
- Fully grown Amethyst now drop 4 Amethyst Shards and 2 by other means