Java Edition 1.9-pre1

1.9-pre1 is the first pre-release for Java Edition 1.9.

Items

 * Shields
 * Durability increased from 181 to 337.

World generation

 * Obsidian pillar
 * Some of the pillars will now generate with iron bars again, which was removed in last snapshot.

Video
Video made by slicedlime:

Trivia

 * Interestingly, the release date for 1.9-pre1 was (though not confirmed by Mojang themselves) hinted at in the 16w06a blog post in the hotbar, where the wool values corresponded to the numbers 1, 7, 0, 2, 2, 0, 1, 6, which represented the date February 17th, 2016 - the day this was released.
 * 1.9-pre1 was previously removed from the launcher for some time, but was added back in September 2018.