Minecraft 1.21 update walkthrough: How to discover all new features

Minecraft 1.21, also known as Tricky Trials, is quite a large-scale update, which is adding a plethora of new content. This content ranges from trial chambers to new mobs, music discs, armor trims, spawners, loot containers, status effects, and potions. This much content can be quite overwhelming to take in all at once, especially if you don't want to miss anything.

Detailed below is a great order to tackle 1.21 content, while also ensuring that all of Tricky Trials' content gets seen.

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How to see all of Minecraft Tricky Trials

1) Find a trial chamber

The inside of a trial chamber, the best spot to find 1.21 content (Image via Mojang)

The first thing you'll want to do to see all of the new Minecraft Tricky Trials content is track down a trial chamber. These new structures are the update's largest feature and include most of the new content available.

Even the process of finding a trial chamber includes new content. Cartographer Minecraft villagers offer a map to trial chambers to make these underground structures easier to find. Once in a trial chamber, more new content can be seen. Trial chambers are made almost entirely of the new variants of tuff and copper blocks being added with 1.21.

Minecraft trial spawners can be found within trial chambers. These are a new spawner variant that spawn mobs (such as the new breeze mob) automatically when detecting a player nearby, no matter the light level. After a few waves of mobs are defeated, they will enter a short cooldown and eject some loot. The best of this loot includes the trial key needed to open a vault.

Vaults are new loot containers that behave totally uniquely. They can be looted by any number of players once. The loot table of vaults includes amazing exclusive finds like the bolt armor smithing template, the "Precipice" music disc, the guster banner pattern, and ominous bottles.

These ominous bottles will apply the newly revamped bad omen effect when consumed. If bad omen is consumed and then detected by a trial spawner, an ominous event will start. This converts trial spanwers into ominous trial spawners, which spawn more difficult mobs. They will drop ominous trial keys when defeated, which can be used to open ominous vaults.

Ominous vaults are where some of the best 1.21 content is found. This includes the flow armor trim template and banner pattern, as well as the "Creator" music disc, higher-level ominous bottles, and heavy cores. These cores are needed to craft the new mace weapon.

The new breeze mob is found exclusively in the trial spawners found in these chambers. These mobs spring around, attacking players from a distance with wind charges, which are projectiles that deal next to no damage but send entities flying. They are totally immune to ranged attacks due to the wind surrounding them. They drop breeze rods, which are needed to make maces, and that can be made into wind charges.

The decorated pots scattered throughout the trail chambers also have amazing loot within them. This includes the music disc for "Creator (Music Box)" and the flow, guster, and scrape pottery shards.

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2) Hunt for a swamp

A bogged in a swamp biome (Image via Mojang)

You'll also want to make sure to visit a swamp to see all of 1.21's content. There is a new Minecraft skeleton variant in the bogged that can spawn in swamps. These mobs shoot slower than regular skeletons and have less health, but they shoot poison-tipped arrows. This makes them quite deadly, even for heavily armored players.

The time spent wandering around looking for the swamp will give you plenty of time to hear the new songs added to the game's soundtrack with the Minecraft 1.21 update.

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3) Make a wool farm

An automatic wool farm (Image via Beef and Cheese/YouTube)

Making a wool farm is an important part of seeing all of 1.21's content. There are 20 new paintings being added in Tricky Trials. This means that having each painting in a survival base will require at least 20 wool. Five are by artist Sarah Boeving, and the other 15 are by artist Kristoffer Zetterstrand. Zetterstrand is the same artist who did the game's original paintings, making the art feel right at home.

This would also be a nice opportunity to take advantage of the revolutionary new Minecraft crafter block. The wool from the automatic wool farm could be combined with sticks in a crafter to totally automate the process of making the 20 paintings needed.

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4) Brew some potions

The symbols for all of 1.21's new status effects (Image via Mojang)

There are also four new status effects coming with Tricky Trials, along with potions for each. This means that all four of these effects can be seen through brewing. The first of these effects is also the most unique. These are infestation potions, brewed using stone blocks. They will cause affected mobs to spawn silverfish when taking damage 10% of the time.

The other three effects all cause something to happen when a mob dies. The first of these is the weaving effect. This potion is brewed using cobwebs. It causes affected mobs to explode into cobwebs on death, making them farmable for the first time. The next potion is the wind-charging potion. This potion is brewed using a breeze rod and causes dying mobs to explode into bursts of air.

The final new potion is the oozing potion. Brewed using a slime block, this potion causes mobs to spawn two medium slimes on death. These slimes then break into small slimes, which then drop slime balls. This means that splash potions of oozing and looting swords can make for highly effective Minecraft slime farms.

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5) New effects

A raid attacking a village (Image via Mojang)

As previously mentioned, bad omen is receiving a revamp in Minecraft 1.21. This turns it into a foundation for two different effects. The first is trial omen, which is what triggers ominous events. The second is raid omen. This new status effect replaces the old bad omen and is what actually summons a raid after entering a village with bad omen.

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6) Make a mace

The mace is a major, and unexpected, addition to 1.21 (Image via Mojang)

The previously mentioned mace weapon is crafted using breeze rods and a heavy core. They are amazing and unique weapons that have two major utility features. The first of these is a knockback AOE (Area of Effect) effect that goes off when landing a smash attack.

Smash attacks are attacks that utilize the mace's other unique utility feature. This is the ability to convert blocks fallen into attack damage while also negating any fall damage that the drop would normally have dealt. This makes them an amazing high-risk item for those who enjoy high-skill ceiling weapons.

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7) Make an enchanting area

The density mace enchantment in the enchanting table (Image via Mojang)

With a mace in hand, the final thing to do in Tricky Trials is put the three new mace Minecraft weapon enchantments on it. The first two enchantments are mutually exclusive and can both be obtained via a regular enchanting table. These are the breach and density enchantments. Breach allows the mace to punch through armor better, where density makes falls increase mace damage more.

The final mace enchantment is wind burst. This enchantment can only be obtained from the previously mentioned ominous vaults. This means that fully enchanting a mace will require more trial chamber farming. This enchantment allows players to bounce back up into the air after landing a smash attack on a target.