Ranking all major Minecraft 1.21 update features

The 1.21 update, also known as Tricky Trials, added quite a large amount of content to Minecraft's base game. From new music discs, building blocks, paintings, personalization options, and mobs to the revoultionary new crafter and the dangerous titular trial chambers, there are an abundance of features all vying to be the update's best.

A tier list of all the major 1.21 features can be found below, along with detailed explanations for why each feature ended up in the tier it did.

Note: This article is subjective and reflects the writer's opinions.

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A tier list of all major Minecraft 1.21 features

The 1.21 feature tier list (Image via TierMaker)

The features on the tier list were judged based on how fun and exciting they are. Thankfully, 1.21 turned out to be quite a great update. This has resulted in there being no F-tier features.

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S-tier features

Trial chambers are by far Minecraft 1.21's best feature (Image via Mojang)

By far the most impressive and best S-tier features of 1.21 are Minecraft's trial chambers. These large and imposing underground structures contain most of 1.21's content. They are made up almost entirely of new blocks from the update, contain both new mobs, and are required to craft the new mace weapon. They are the pinnacle of 1.21's features.

Trial chambers also contain the music discs, pottery sherds, banner patterns, and armor smithing templates mentioned below, making them even better.

Crafters are another revolutionary 1.21 feature. They are redstone components that are able to automatically craft raw materials into complex items, a feature normally only possible in Minecraft's best mods. This block will make automated farming much more powerful, as farms can now be chained together to make better items without player input, landing them in S-tier.

The mace is the final S-tier feature. This new weapon type is incredibly unique. It's able to totally negate fall damage, converting the blocks fallen into extra attack damage. It also has a large AOE knockback effect when landing a smash attack. One of the weapon's unique enchantments, wind burst, also allows players to pogo up into the air, chaining attacks together, creating a whole new style of combat.

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A-tier features

A breeze mob patrolling a trial chamber (Image via Mojang)

Both of 1.21's A-Tier features are new Minecraft mobs. The first of these mobs is the breeze. This mob springs around, attacking players with wind charges. These attacks deal almost no damage but can send entities flying around. They are the only source of breeze rods, which can be crafted into wind charges or used to make a mace.

The other new mob found in Tricky Trials is the bogged. Bogged are a new skeleton variant. They have two fewer hearts than regular skeletons and also attack slower. This is to balance the fact that these mobs fire poison-tipped arrows. This makes them incredibly deadly, thanks to the arrow damage and damage over time. They can also drop these poison arrows, making them great to farm.

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B-tier features

Some of the new copper and tuff blocks (Image via Mojang)

The first B-Tier feature of 1.21 are the three new music discs. These are also the most minor of the B-Tier features. There are three new discs in total: "Precipe," "Creator," and "Creator (Music Box)." All three of these tracks are incredible and would make for amazing tracks to play while hanging out at base.

Next are the two new Minecraft armor smithing templates. The first of these new templates is the bolt trim, found rarely within regular vaults. Like the name implies, this trim adds decorative bolts to armor. The other new trim is the flow trim, found in ominous vaults. This trim adds flowing lines to armor, hence the name.

The other two B-tier 1.21 features are the new blocks added. The first of these are the new Minecraft copper blocks. This includes copper doors, trapdoors, grates, and bulbs. These blocks are all amazing for steampunk builds due to their mechanical nature. The other new blocks bring tuff in line with other stone variants by adding in stairs, walls, and bricks, giving players a new stone option to use.

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C-tier features

All of Minecraft 1.21's paintings (Image via Mojang)

The largest feature in the C-tier are the new status effects. There are six of them in total. Four of these are Minecraft potion effects: weaving, infestation, oozing, and wind charging. The other two are trial omen and raid omen. Infestation is the worst of these new effects, causing mobs to have a small chance of spawning silverfish when damaged. This only makes fights more chaotic.

Raid omen is the epitome of a C-Tier effect. It's technically great: allowing players access to raids. However, this effect was already in the game through bad omen; raid omen is just a new way of activating raids. It's nothing new or exciting.

Wind charging and weaving are also great examples of why the statuses are in C-Tier. Wind-charged mobs to explode like wind charges when killed. Mobs affected by weaving, on the other hand, will explode into cobwebs upon death. This is the first time that cobwebs have been a renewable resource, which would be more exciting if cobwebs were more useful items.

Oozing and trial omen are the best of the new effects, but they aren't enough to pull the feature as a whole out of C-Tier. Oozing causes mobs to spawn medium slimes on death. These slimes then spawn small slimes, which drop slimeballs, making for wonderfully efficient Minecraft slime farms. Trial omen causes trial chambers to convert into ominous events, giving players access to 1.21's best loot.

The next C-tier 1.21 feature are the new banner patterns available to players. The first of these patterns is the guster pattern, which resembles a breeze. The other banner pattern is the flow pattern, which resembles a spiral of air. These give players new and interesting ways of decorating banners, which can be used to decorate a base or placed on a shield.

The final C-tier 1.21 feature are the new Minecraft paintings. There are 20 new paintings in total. 15 of these are by the artist of the game's original paintings, Kristoffer Zetterstrand. The other five are by Sarah Boeving. Despite being added so many years after the rest of the paintings, they all fit in perfectly well.

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D-tier features

Decorated pots in a Minecraft trial chamber (Image via Mojang)

The only D-tier 1.21 features are the three new designs of pottery sherds added to the game. Pottery sherds are used in Minecraft archeology to add designs and patterns to decorated pots. There are three new pottery sherds in 1.21, all found naturally on pots within trial chambers.

The first of these is the scrap sherd, which features an axe. The other sherds are the guster and flow sherds. These resemble a breeze and a burst of air, like the previously mentioned banner patterns. While extra customization options are never bad, these sherds are purely aesthetic, landing them in D-tier.