Minecraft Vault guide: How to unlock, loot, and more

Vault blocks are one of the most mechanically interesting Minecraft update 1.21 additions. These are found exclusively within the upcoming trial chambers, a new underground combat arena filled with spawners that spit out loot when defeated. However, vault blocks are the structure's true ultimate reward, but they cannot be opened like regular loot chests.

Vaults behave in ways unlike any other block in the entire game and are an exciting indication of where Mojang may be taking future naturally generated structures.

Everything players need to know about vaults can be found below.

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Everything about Minecraft's vault block

Finding a vault

These maps make finding trial chambers much easier (Image via Mojang Studios)

As established, vault blocks are only found within trial chambers. That means players will need to find these structures to find vaults. Thankfully, the latest snapshot has made this much easier by adding a new Minecraft villager trade with cartographers at the journeyman level.

Now, there is a chance that the map to elusive woodland mansions is replaced by a map to a nearby trial chamber, giving players a way to ensure they can find one, even if the trade itself is not guaranteed to appear. Follow the map until above the structure's icon and then build a staircase down. Be sure not to dig straight down to avoid accidental lava deaths.

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Unlocking a vault

Vaults react to players that can open them when they get close (Image via Mojang Studios)

As mentioned, vault blocks are loot blocks that don't function like regular chests. Instead of being a shared container where the fastest hands claim the most loot, each vault can be looted by an unlimited number of players, but each player can only loot any single vault once.

This ensures that players get their share of loot, which makes sense. The Minecraft trial spawners found within trial chambers spawn more enemies with more players, so Mojang intended these structures to be fought in groups. Making sure everyone in that group gets a chance at loot helps encourage players on Minecraft's best servers to tackle trial chambers together.

Opening a vault requires a trial key, one of the rewards that can drop when a trial spawner is defeated. Players need to use the key on the vault block, which will cause it to light up and dispense loot.

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The potential loot

Vault blocks spit items out their top when given a trial key (Image via Mojang Studios)

Vault blocks have a lot of great loot options, with the best and most interesting being new armor trims, banner patterns, enchanted golden apples, and the heavy core needed to craft Minecraft's incredibly strong mace weapon. The full list of loot as of Java 1.21's most recent snapshot is as follows:

Item	Stack Size	Percent Chance
Arrow	2-8	37
Emerald	2-8	37
Arrow of Poison	2-8	37
Iron Ingot	1-4	28.8
Honey Bottle	1-2	28.8
Wind Charge	4-12	10.4
Diamond	1-2	10.4
Damaged Shield, Enchanted Bow/Iron Axe/Iron Chestplate	1	9.4
Bolt Armor Trim Template, Flow Armor Trim Template, Enchanted Book/Crossbow/Golden Apple/Diamond Axe/Diamond Chestplate, Regular Golden Apple	1	6.2
Flow Banner Pattern, Guster Banner Pattern, Heavy Core	1	2.1

The rest of the loot isn't bad either, with there being a decent chance to get full blocks of emerald as well as books containing some of Minecraft's best enchantments, like mending, riptide, and fortune.