Banner

Banners are tall decorative blocks, featuring a field that is highly customizable using dyes and patterns.

Obtaining
Illager banners can be obtained either by killing the illager patrol or obtaining it in the creative inventory.

Breaking
Banners can be broken with or without a tool, but an axe is fastest.

A banner also breaks and drops itself as an item if the block the banner is attached to is moved, removed, or destroyed.

Crafting
Banners can be crafted from wool and a stick.

Trading
Expert-level cartographer villagers always offer to sell 1 or 2 blank banners of a random color for 3 emeralds. Expert-level shepherd villagers have a $2/7$ chance of offering the same trade.

$$, expert-level cartographer and shepherd villagers both offer to sell one of 16 blank banners for 3 emeralds as part of their trades.

Mob drops
Illagers that spawn carrying an ominous banner / illager banner always drop it upon death.

Usage


There are 16 colored blank banners, and numerous patterns each available in each of the 16 colors. A banner can feature up to 6 different patterns. The top layer of a banner (or the last pattern added) can be washed off by it on a cauldron containing water.

Banners, much like signs, can be placed both on the ground facing in any direction, or on a wall. Banners have no collision mask as they are completely non-solid, so items and mobs can move through them.

Other blocks (including other banners) can be placed on any edge of a banner's hitbox, which is only one block high despite the banner appearing as two blocks tall. This makes it possible to overlap another solid block on the top half of a banner for floor banners, or the bottom half of wall banners.

When a banner is placed on the side of a block, its position is set by the top block, and it is possible to place it so it appears half buried.

Banners can also be placed in item frames, where they simply appear as their item model.

Water and lava flow around banners. $$, banners can be waterlogged.

Lava can create fire in air blocks next to banners as if the banners were flammable, but the banners do not burn (and can't be burned by other methods, either). Banners also cannot be moved by pistons.

If a banner is renamed on an anvil, it retains its name when a pattern is added, but not when a pattern is removed.

Helmet
While a banner cannot be equipped in the head slot in Survival mode, equipping it using commands causes it to appear on top of the player. This is how pillager captains wear banners.

Copying
Banners can be copied with a blank banner to make multiple identical banners.

Crafting ingredient
Shields can have patterns applied to them using banners. The shield pattern has a smaller resolution than the banner pattern, causing them to look different or offset.

Fuel
Banners can be used as a fuel in furnaces, smelting 1.5 items per banner.

Renaming
$$, a banner can be given a custom name that remains as the banner is placed and retrieved. The player can use an anvil to rename the banner item, or may change the  tag using the  command on the banner block.

Map marker
$$, right-clicking on a banner with a map selected places a marker of the banner's position on that map, and right-clicking again removes it. The marker has the same color as the banner's base without decorations. The marker is removed if the banner is destroyed unless the map is locked using a cartography table. If the banner is renamed, the name appears below the marker.

Patterns
A banner may have up to six patterns, which are overlayed with the last-crafted on top. A banner can have up to 16 patterns with the use of commands.

Any color banner can be used; the pattern overlays the color. A loom is used to make patterns.

ID




Block data
$$, banner blocks use the following data values:

Item data
$$, banner items use the following data values:

Block entity
A banner has a block entity associated with it that holds additional data about the block.

Trivia

 * When Banners are placed in the Overworld, they gently sway, as if affected by the wind.
 * With 16 blank banners, 38 patterns of 16 colors each (608 uniquely-colored patterns), and 0 to 6 patterns per banner, the number of uniquely crafted banners is 16 × (6080 + 6081 + 6082 + 6083 + 6084 + 6085 + 6086) ≈ 809 quadrillion (809,573,616,779,945,488). The number of visually distinct banners is smaller, because one or more patterns may completely cover other patterns, or the entire banner, or be duplicated due to the symmetric set of patterns (e.g. field or (yellow) + per pale azure (blue) = field azure + per pale or inverted).
 * If a banner has over 6 patterns, only the six bottom-most patterns are displayed when hovered over in the inventory.
 * The Mojang Logo is called "Thing" ingame, which could be considered an alternate translation for mojäng. If Google Translate is used, it translates to "thingys" or "contraption".
 * In the Swedish translation of the game, this pattern is, in fact, called mojäng.
 * Banner textures are located in \assets\minecraft\textures\entity\banner.
 * There are 40 monochrome textures, each containing all 6 sides of the banner.
 * The texture of the back side is the mirrored texture of the front side.
 * Compared to the texture files, textures' colors are inverted in-game due to them acting as masks for the re-colored base texture, base.png. That means white is visible, while black is transparent.
 * There are two unused item textures for the banner. Instead, the banner displays itself as if it were a block.
 * $$, banners are considered as items. Dropping a banner on the ground reveals that the item entity does not rotate like the item entity of a block. This is because the banner previously had an item sprite, and items never rotate when idle.
 * The Ominous Banner's design uses 8 patterns. Because of this, it cannot be crafted.
 * Because the Illager Banner is a separate type of banner, the player cannot add patterns to it or even put it in the banner slot of a Loom.
 * Banners that have the purple NBT+ line in the bottom (obtained by holding Ctrl and middle-clicking the banner, which also copies the NBT tag of anything that the player points their crosshair to) actually has no difference with the base banner obtained by middle click.
 * The Ominous Banner or Illager Banner is the only naturally occured banner extend over the limit of 6 layers (with a total of 8 layers).
 * It's also the only uncraftable banner by hand.