Minecraft ominous trial key guide: How to get, use, and rewards

A surprising amount of Minecraft 1.21's best content is locked behind ominous vaults and the ominous trial keys needed to open them. From the heavy core needed to craft the new mace weapon, enchanted books for all of the game's best enchantments, to entire blocks of emerald and diamond, there's no shortage of amazing loot within these vaults. This makes getting ominous keys incredibly important if you want to see all of 1.21.

Detailed below is everything you need to know about ominous trial keys in Minecraft, from where to find them to what loot they can give you.

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All about Minecraft 1.12's ominous trial keys

How to get

Ominous keys are obtained by using the new trial omen status effect (Image via Mojang)

Getting an ominous key requires you to take on an ominous Minecraft event. Ypu have to use the newly revamped bad omen effect to get trial omen. This causes trial spawners to convert into ominous spawners, which spawn more difficult, armored, hostile mobs. These more difficult spawners have a 30% chance of dropping an ominous key when defeated.

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How to use

A player about to open an ominous vault using a matching ominous trial key (Image via Mojang)

Using an ominous trial key, once one is acquired, is quite simple. All you need to do is track down an ominous Minecraft vault and interact with it using the key. Ominous vaults generate within trial chambers and can be identified by their soul-fire blue accent color. This will consume the key and cause the ominous vault to spit out a handful of loot items.

When attempting to open an ominous vault, make sure to use an ominous key, as regular and ominous keys are not interchangeable.

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Ominous vault loot

Heavy cores are the best ominous vault loot items, allowing players to craft mace weapons (Image via Mojang)

Since they are both more rare and harder to open than regular vaults, ominous vaults have much better loot. This loot can be separated into three main categories: resources, weapons and armor, and aesthetic items.

The resource category contains loot like blocks of emerald, iron, and diamond, as well as high-level ominous bottles, enchanted golden apples, arrows of slowness, and wind charges.

The weapon and armor category contains enchanted diamond axes, chestplates, and crossbows. It also includes the heavy core needed to make the new Minecraft mace weapon and enchanted books for all three new mace enchantments. You can also get enchanted books for other amazing enchantments, like fortune, silk touch, or efficiency.

The final category of ominous vault loot is aesthetic items. This is the smallest category, containing only three items in total. The first of these new items is the flow Minecraft armor smithing template. This trim applies a flowing, wind-like design to armor. The flow banner pattern can also be obtained in this way, which has a similar flowing design. The final piece of loot is the "Creator" music disc.