Minecraft 1.21 "Tricky Trials" Update

"Tricky Trials" is a major Minecraft update built entirely around combat and automation. It came out on June 13, 2024, in Java Edition 1.21, and Bedrock got its own version, numbered 1.21.0, the same day. The heart of it is Trial Chambers, underground structures of copper and tuff with traps, waves of mobs and locked rewards. There you will also meet new enemies, the Breeze and the Bogged, though the Bogged lives in swamps too. For the hardest fights the game gives you the Heavy Core, which is used to make the Mace.

Along with the chambers, the game got the Crafter for automatic crafting, Wind Charges, ominous events with new potions and whole families of copper and tuff blocks. The update is built so that one thing leads to another. For the Mace you go to a chamber, in the chamber you meet Breezes, from Breezes you get the rods for Wind Charges, and with Wind Charges you launch yourself up for a smash attack. Almost two months later, on August 8, 2024, Java Edition 1.21.1 came out, an urgent fix for a dangerous vulnerability with the same game data. This article describes the game as of 1.21.1.

Trial Chamber

The Trial Chamber is a new underground structure of the Overworld that you will meet in the deepslate layer. It generates in parts and comes in different sizes. It turns up in the underground fairly often. Inside, traps, combat rooms and locked rewards await you, so go in with armor and a supply of food. This is a place for fighting, not for quiet mining.

What it is built from

The chamber is built from various copper and tuff blocks. Mobs do not spawn inside on their own, as in an Ancient City. So everything you meet in a fight is released by spawners, not by dark corners. A chamber never starts in the Deep Dark biome, though it may clip its edge.

Corridors and supplies

Decorated Pots are placed along the corridors, with all sorts of things hidden inside, and a broken pot sometimes drops a pottery sherd or a music disc. Barrels of supplies stand between the rooms. They hold food, torches, blocks for navigation and other small things that help on a long expedition. Look closely at the walls and the floor, because some passages are hidden and dispenser traps strike from ambush.

Trial Spawners

Trial Spawners stand in the combat rooms and release waves of mobs. For each chamber, one mob is chosen in advance from each of three groups, and this set is the same for the whole structure. In melee it is a Zombie, a Husk or a Spider; among the small melee mobs a Slime, a Cave Spider, a Baby Zombie or a Silverfish; and at range a Skeleton, a Stray or a Bogged. Some rooms always release Breezes, and those rooms are the most dangerous.

Vaults and the map

Vaults stand by the combat rooms and at the entrance, blocks with a locked reward. A regular Vault is opened with a Trial Key , and an Ominous Vault with an Ominous Trial Key . A Vault stands on a pedestal of waxed copper and blinks its keyhole while a player who has not opened it yet is nearby. Each player can open a single Vault only once, but there can be any number of players. The possible rewards cycle through the display inside, but you cannot time the one you want, because the loot is decided the moment you insert the key. Regular Vaults hold Enchanted Books, gear and a rare Trident, while Ominous ones hold better rewards and items found nowhere else. Ominous Vaults are hidden in hard-to-reach places. They glow with soul fire and look more dangerous than regular ones. A Trial Explorer Map, sold by a journeyman cartographer, helps you find a chamber.

Trial Spawners and ominous rooms

The Trial Spawner is a special kind of monster spawner that gives a reward for a win. You cannot craft it or obtain it in Survival. It takes a very long time to break, is not harmed by explosions, drops no item when mined and is not moved by pistons. From the outside it looks like a regular spawner, but it works differently.

How it works

The spawner notices players in Survival and Adventure modes if it sees them directly, and raises the trial level for each new one. The higher the level, the more mobs come out per fight, so two players have a harder fight than one. Mobs appear even in full light, do not vanish on their own and come out only within the spawner's line of sight. When a room is cleared, the spawner ejects the reward and goes on a half-hour cooldown. In Creative mode its mob type is not set until you set it with a Spawn Egg.

Trial Keys

After a win the spawner does not always drop a Trial Key. Sometimes each player gets consumable items as a reward instead. With the key you collect, you open Vaults in the same chamber. Neither the Trial Key nor the Heavy Core can be crafted. They are obtained only as loot and reward.

Ominous spawner

If you enter a chamber with Bad Omen, the nearby spawners become ominous. Such a spawner glows blue, smokes with soul fire and from time to time casts potions and projectiles at players and mobs. It releases mobs in enchanted gear with a special trim. Their armor carries protective enchantments and their weapons are strengthened. Mobs without armor appear in double the numbers. Beating such a spawner gives an Ominous Trial Key with a 30% chance, and it opens Ominous Vaults. For this the game awards the "Revaulting" advancement.

Mace

The Mace is a new melee weapon and the main trophy of the update. Its strength is not in an ordinary hit but in the smash attack you land by falling onto an enemy. The Mace's base damage is 5. The Mace itself is one of the slowest weapons in the game, but its strike from height is stronger than any other.

How to craft it

The Mace is made from a Heavy Core and a Breeze Rod . The Heavy Core goes on top and the rod below it. The Heavy Core drops only from Ominous Vaults, so the Mace is not easy to put together. You repair the Mace on an anvil with Breeze Rods, and one rod restores about a quarter of its durability. Like the Trident and the Heavy Core, the Mace counts as an epic item, and its name in the tooltip is shown in purple.

The smash attack

The smash attack triggers if you have fallen more than 1.5 blocks before the hit, and it does not matter whether the attack has recharged. It cancels the fall damage you built up, so landing does not hurt you. The strike also knocks back everyone nearby. The greater the fall height, the greater the damage bonus. For the first 3 blocks of the fall it adds 4 per block, for the next 5 it adds 2, and for each block after that it adds 1. With Wind Charges you can launch yourself up and then land a smash attack on the way down.

The smash attack usually lands as a critical hit, so the fall damage is boosted further by the critical-hit multiplier. From a great height the damage comes out enormous, and that is exactly why the Mace is taken into the hardest fights rather than for everyday fighting.

Common enchantments

The Mace accepts Mending, Unbreaking, Smite, Bane of Arthropods, Fire Aspect and Curse of Vanishing. If you like, you can build it around a familiar fighting style rather than only around the smash attack.

Density

The Density enchantment strengthens the smash attack specifically. It has 5 levels, and each adds 0.5 damage for every block fallen. It is a common enchantment, obtained with an enchanting table and also found on Enchanted Books from chests.

Breach

The Breach enchantment cuts the target's armor by 15% per level, and it has 4 levels in all. Against a well-protected enemy this is sometimes more important than raw damage. The enchantment is rare but is also available at the enchanting table and on books from chests.

Wind Burst

The Wind Burst enchantment turns up only in Ominous Vaults, and only the first level is found there, so to get the third level you combine books on an anvil. On a successful smash attack the enchantment throws you upward, and the higher the level the stronger the launch, so you can chain the strikes together. But note that such a launch removes the protection from fall damage that the smash attack usually gives.

The Density, Breach, Smite and Bane of Arthropods enchantments are not compatible with one another, so you choose just one for the Mace. For a hit that takes off 50 hearts at once, the game awards the "Over-Overkill" advancement.

Breeze

The Breeze is a hostile mob released by the spawners in a chamber's combat rooms. It has 30 health and moves in jumps, circling around its target. It is a nimble enemy, hard to reach at range, so you have to close in.

Protection from projectiles

The Breeze deflects almost all projectiles and is essentially immune to being shot. The only exception is Wind Charges, which it does not deflect. A deflected projectile flies on and can hit the shooter, so shoot at a Breeze with care.

How it moves

The Breeze is in the air almost all the time. It hops around its target, moving off the line of attack, and clears obstacles in leaps of about fifteen blocks. It takes no fall damage at all, so you cannot trap it in a pit, and in lava it jumps very weakly.

Attack

The Breeze shoots Wind Charges, and on hit they create a gust of wind with area knockback. The Breeze does not strike Skeletons, Strays, Bogged, Zombies, Husks, Spiders, Cave Spiders and Slimes. These mobs, in turn, ignore its charge. But the Breeze chases Iron Golems readily.

Drops

A Breeze killed by a player drops 1–2 Breeze Rods, and the Looting enchantment increases their number. The rod is used to make Wind Charges and the Mace, so it is worth returning to the Breeze rooms for gear. If you finish a Breeze off with its own deflected charge, the game gives the "Blowback" advancement.

Wind Charge

The Wind Charge is a throwable projectile you launch by hand. A single Breeze Rod yields 4 charges at once. A direct hit deals a little damage, and a gust of wind bursts at the point of impact and shoves everything around it. Your charge knocks back 10% harder than a Breeze's charge but affects a smaller area.

How to throw them

Half a second passes between throws. A charge can also be fired from a Dispenser , which is handy for traps and contraptions. The projectile launches creatures, including yourself, so it is used to send yourself up for a Mace strike. If you have launched yourself with a charge, fall damage builds up only below the height where you met the gust. You take no harm if you fly up and come back down to a height no lower than your starting point. Wind Charges are crafted from the rod and are also found among the loot in a chamber's Vaults.

What the gust of wind does

The gust changes the state of blocks that react to being pressed. It opens and closes wooden doors and trapdoors and fence gates, pushes buttons, flips levers, rings bells and snuffs out lit candles. It does not work on iron doors and trapdoors, nor on a block whose state is held by a redstone signal. The charge also breaks Decorated Pots and knocks off Chorus Flowers. If you launch yourself up at least 8 blocks, you can earn the "Who Needs Rockets?" advancement.

Bogged

The Bogged is a variety of Skeleton overgrown with mushrooms. It has 16 health. That is less than a regular Skeleton, so it is easier to deal with. It is found in swamps and mangrove swamps, where it appears in place of some of the regular Skeletons, and it is also released by some spawners in the chambers.

Poisoned arrows

The Bogged shoots poisoned arrows about once every 3.5 seconds. That is less often than a regular Skeleton, which shoots once every two seconds. The arrow itself deals little damage, but the poison afterward wears you down, so in a fight it is better not to stand under fire but to close in quickly.

In the cold

In Powder Snow the Bogged freezes and takes cold damage, but unlike a regular Skeleton it does not turn into a Stray. You cannot turn it into a Stray with cold, and it is easier to finish off in melee.

Mushrooms from the Bogged

If you shear the mushrooms off a Bogged with Shears, exactly 2 mushrooms drop. Any combination of red and brown mushrooms is possible. You get two red, two brown or one of each. You cannot shear the mushrooms a second time. You can get a Bogged Spawn Egg in Creative mode.

Crafter

The Crafter is a block that crafts items on a redstone signal. It is basically a Crafting Table that works by itself, and almost all automatic crafting systems rest on it. Place it, set a recipe, and from there it does everything without you.

How to craft it

The Crafter is made from 5 Iron Ingots , 1 Crafting Table , 2 Redstone Dust and 1 Dropper. When placed, it faces the player, and the finished item comes out of exactly that side.

How it works

Inside, the Crafter has a 3×3 grid, like a Crafting Table. Lay out the ingredients on it, and on each redstone pulse the Crafter outputs one craft result from the front. If a chest or a hopper stands in front of it, the item goes there, otherwise it drops into the world. Leftover items such as an empty bucket fly out along with the result. Hoppers and hopper minecarts put items into the Crafter and take the finished ones out, so it is easy to build into a conveyor.

How the slots fill up

When items are fed in by a hopper, the Crafter sorts them by a rule of its own. First it fills the first free enabled slot in order, left to right and top to bottom. When no free slots are left, it adds the item to the smallest matching stack. Thanks to this, a single Crafter spreads several kinds of ingredients evenly across the slots and keeps the recipe you need.

Disableable slots

Any slot in the grid can be disabled. Nothing is placed in a disabled slot, and hoppers and droppers skip it, so you set the exact shape of the recipe and do not worry about an item landing in the wrong place. The Crafter sends a Redstone Comparator a signal of strength 0 to 9 based on the number of filled and disabled slots. The Crafter's window is shared by all players, like a chest. When a Crafter crafts another Crafter while you stand nearby, the game awards the "Crafters Crafting Crafters" advancement.

Copper and tuff

Trial Chambers are built from copper and tuff, and both families of blocks have grown noticeably. Copper blocks turn green over time, and to stop the oxidation you wax them with a honeycomb. An Axe, by contrast, removes the wax and scrapes off the oxidation.

Copper Bulb

• A light that turns on and off with a redstone pulse and stays in its state even after the signal is removed.
• Its brightness depends on oxidation. On clean copper it is 15, and as it turns green it drops to 12, 8 and 4. A Comparator next to a lit bulb outputs a signal of 15.
• The recipe gives 4 bulbs from 3 copper blocks, 1 Blaze Rod and 1 redstone. For scraping the oxidation off a bulb with an Axe you get the "Lighten Up" advancement.

Copper Grate

• A transparent block you can see through and that holds water.
• Mobs do not suffocate in it, hostile creatures do not spawn on it, and it does not conduct redstone.
• In a stonecutter 1 copper block gives 4 grates, and on a Crafting Table 4 copper blocks in a ring give the same.

Chiseled Copper

• A decorative block with a pattern.
• It is made from 2 cut copper slabs of the same oxidation level or cut with a stonecutter.

Copper Door and Trapdoor

• They work like wooden ones. They can be opened by hand and with a redstone signal. They are also opened by mobs that can open doors.
• They are now made from Copper Ingots , not from blocks. The Copper Trapdoor is also made from ingots.
• They oxidize over time but keep their look under wax. The oxidized versions cannot be crafted, but the waxed ones can.

The tuff family

Tuff now gives stairs, slabs, walls and a chiseled variant, plus Tuff Bricks and Polished Tuff with their own stairs, slabs and walls. Polished Tuff and Chiseled Tuff are made on a Crafting Table or cut with a stonecutter.

Heavy Core

The Heavy Core is a heavy block that, together with a Breeze Rod, makes the Mace. It cannot be crafted. It drops only from Ominous Vaults. The Heavy Core counts as an epic item, sinks in lava without burning, and is mined with a pickaxe.

Ominous events

Bad Omen was reworked in the update. It used to start a raid, and now it is needed for all ominous events, including ominous trials in the chambers and raids. Bad Omen itself is no longer given for beating a raid captain outside a raid; now you get it by drinking an Ominous Bottle. Bad Omen now has its own grim icon and a special sound. The point of ominous events is that you decide for yourself whether to make the game harder for better loot.

Ominous Bottle

• Gives Bad Omen for 1 hour 40 minutes and breaks when you drink it.
• There are 5 kinds of bottles, one for each level of Bad Omen. The bottles stack up to 64.
• It turns up now and then in Vaults, and it is also dropped by a raid captain killed outside a raid.

Raid Omen

With Bad Omen, step into a village and it turns into Raid Omen for 30 seconds, after which a raid starts where you got the Raid Omen. Milk removes the omen and cancels the raid. In Java Edition a high level of Bad Omen adds an extra wave to the raid and strengthens the raiders' enchantments.

Trial Omen and ominous trials

If you approach a regular Trial Spawner with Bad Omen, Bad Omen becomes Trial Omen, and the nearby spawners become ominous. The omen lasts 15 minutes for each level of Bad Omen, so a high level simply extends the time rather than making the fight harder. An ominous trial is harder than a regular one, but the rewards in Ominous Vaults are richer.

New potions

Six new effects appeared in the game, and four of them have a potion of their own. All four are brewed from an Awkward Potion and one item, and each has a splash and a lingering form, as well as an arrow. The effects act on whoever you hit with the potion, not on you. That is why in a fight potions are thrown at the enemy. Many of them trigger the moment the target dies, so these are trap potions rather than the usual buff or heal, and they are handy for setting ambushes for a crowd of mobs.

Potion of Wind Charging

• The Wind Charged effect makes a creature release a gust of wind the moment it dies.
• Brewed from an Awkward Potion and a Breeze Rod.

Potion of Weaving

• The Weaving effect scatters Cobwebs where a creature dies. A player's movement speed through Cobwebs under this effect is twice the usual. It is half the normal speed instead of a quarter.
• Brewed from an Awkward Potion and a block of Cobweb.

Potion of Oozing

• The Oozing effect summons two Slimes when a creature dies. If the number of creatures in a 5×5×5 area around it exceeds the usual limit, no new Slimes appear.
• Brewed from an Awkward Potion and a Slime Block. Slimes themselves are immune to Oozing.

Potion of Infestation

• The Infested effect has a 10% chance to summon 1–2 Silverfish each time a creature under this effect takes damage.
• Brewed from an Awkward Potion and Stone. Silverfish are immune to Infested.

Decorations and music

Trial Chambers brought not only fights but also a scattering of decorations. Some of them are found nowhere but the chamber's Vaults and pots, so this is one more reason to visit.

Pottery sherds

• Three sherds were added, named Flow, Guster and Scrape .
• They drop from the Decorated Pots that stand in the chamber's corridors.

Banner patterns

• The Flow pattern lies in regular Vaults, and the Guster pattern in Ominous ones.

Armor trims

• The Flow trim turns up in Ominous Vaults, and the Bolt trim in regular ones.
• Flow is cloned with a Breeze Rod, and Bolt with a copper block.

Music discs

• Aaron Cherof's "Precipice" disc turns up now and then in regular Vaults, and when it plays a Comparator next to the jukebox outputs a signal of 13.
• Lena Raine's "Creator" disc lies in Ominous Vaults, and its signal is 12.
• Lena Raine's "Creator (Music Box)" disc drops from the pots in the chambers, and its signal is 11.

Paintings and music

20 new paintings were added to the game. Of them, 5 were painted by Sarah Boeving and 15 by Kristoffer Zetterstrand. Among them are "Baroque", "Humble", "Sunflowers", "Pond", "Tides" and "Endboss". Along with them came 9 new music tracks from Aaron Cherof, Kumi Tanioka and Lena Raine. They play in the main menu and in certain biomes. A few new cave sounds were added too.

Other changes in the game

The chambers and the Mace were not the end of it. A new command, a game rule and many small behavior tweaks were added to the game.

Command and rule

• The /transfer command moves a player to another server.
• The spawnChunkRadius rule sets the radius of chunks that stay loaded around the world spawn point.

Portals and dimensions

• An Ender Pearl thrown through a portal can now carry a player to another dimension.
• On a horse or in a minecart you can ride through a portal, and the transition happens without delay.

Combat and projectiles

• Knockback from a projectile no longer depends on where the shooter stands. Arrows and fireballs push in the direction of flight, while potions and fireworks push away from themselves.
• The Trident became an epic item, like the Mace and the Heavy Core.
• Fire protection and blast protection now add up across all worn pieces of armor.

The world and small things

• Doors of different materials now form a double door.
• Witches always drop 4–8 redstone on death, which makes the farms in their huts more useful.
• Animal panic after taking damage now lasts 2 seconds instead of the former five.
• End Crystals no longer burn in fire.
• Boats can now be led on a leash.
• Server links appeared in the pause menu. Chunk loading was sped up and its memory use reduced.
• As tradition has it, the changelog carries the line "Removed Herobrine".

Realms and interface

• In the server player list, a head is now shown next to the name, and a tooltip pops up on hover.
• A confirmation checkbox appeared before you send a report about a player.
• The credits were updated and small things in the menu were tweaked.

Technical changes

• Enchantments are now data-driven and can be set and changed through data packs. The data pack version went up to 48 and the resource pack version to 34.
• The whole experimental "Update 1.21" set became part of the normal game, so the matching toggle and the built-in data pack were removed.
• The game now needs Java 21, where Java 17 used to be enough.

The 1.21.1 update

Java Edition 1.21.1 came out on August 8, 2024. It is an urgent fix with no new features. Its game data is the same as in 1.21, so 1.21 clients connect to 1.21.1 servers.

• Dangerous vulnerabilities that let a server be crashed were fixed. Mojang advised server owners to update.
• Support for the Tzotzil and Belarusian (Latin) languages was added.

How development went

All the additions tied to Trial Chambers were first tried out in the experimental "Update 1.21" data pack in versions 1.20.5 and 1.20.6, and in 1.21 they became part of the normal game. Test versions of 1.21 itself came out in the spring and early summer of 2024.

• 24w18a, the first 1.21 snapshot. The whole experimental set was moved into the normal game, 20 paintings, 3 music discs and data-driven enchantments were added. The Mace was rebalanced, and Copper Doors and Trapdoors started to be made from ingots.
• In 24w19a chunk loading was sped up and the Copper Bulb's sounds were reworked. Snapshot 24w19b fixed the cause of a crash.
• In 24w20a Witches started always dropping 4–8 redstone, pistons grew quieter, and attributes and effects now persist through respawn and a change of dimension.
• In 24w21a jukeboxes became data-driven, server links appeared in the pause menu, animal panic shrank to 2 seconds, and chambers began to turn up less often in the Deep Dark. Snapshot 24w21b fixed the cause of a crash when a zombie spawned.
• Pre-Release 1, May 29. Boats can now be leashed, you can move through portals with an Ender Pearl and ride through them.
• Pre-Release 2, May 31. The Mace, the Trident and the Heavy Core became epic, and End Crystals stopped burning.
• Pre-Release 3, June 5. The Wind Burst enchantment was documented.
• Pre-Release 4, June 7. Fire and blast protection were adjusted, which was later reverted.
• Release Candidate 1, June 10. The protection change was reverted and critical bugs were fixed.
• 1.21, June 13. The update itself came out.
• 1.21.1 Release Candidate 1, August 7, and 1.21.1, August 8. An urgent fix for the vulnerabilities.

Fixed bugs

The 1.21 changelog lists about two hundred fixed bugs. Below are a few notable ones by group.

Portals and dimensions

The loss of blocks on the End's obsidian platform was fixed, along with the behavior of TNT, falling blocks, End Crystals, Ender Pearls and leashed creatures when passing through a portal.

Attributes and effects

Cases where a player's attributes reset on respawn, on a change of dimension or on leaving the End were fixed.

New items

Bugs with the Mace and Wind Charges were fixed. They caused the loss of fall protection after rejoining, double damage and no sound when pressing buttons and flipping levers.

Chambers and Vaults

Chamber generation bugs, bugs with bedrock intersection and with flooded grates were fixed. One bug fixed separately meant a Vault's reward was not decided in advance, so now you cannot rejoin for the loot you want.

Stacks and items

A large group of fixes dealt with the reset and duplication of oversized stacks of buckets, stews, books, music discs and bottles. The same fixes addressed a bug where banner patterns counted as common loot.

Enchantments and gear

Long-standing enchantment bugs that wasted durability, spoiled the view and produced too many particles were fixed. The Thorns enchantment, which did not trigger on some mobs, was fixed too. These fixes concern not the new items but familiar gear.

Interface and text

Captions, capitalization and the localization of interface strings were fixed.

Bedrock Edition 1.21.0

Bedrock Edition 1.21.0 "Tricky Trials" came out on June 13, 2024, the same day as Java Edition. The set of additions is the same. It includes Trial Chambers, the Breeze, the Bogged, the Mace with its enchantments, the Crafter, spawners and Vaults, copper and tuff blocks, new potions, music discs and paintings. Below is only what the Bedrock changelog says about this version.

• Rare loot in Vaults here drops with a 20% chance, while in Java Edition it is 80%.
• The Mace in Bedrock has no delay between hits, so its total damage in a fight is higher than in Java Edition.
• The level of Bad Omen in Bedrock affects only trials, while in Java Edition it affects raids too.
• In Bedrock the update brought 4 achievements, and in Java Edition 8 advancements.

The next Java Edition version, 1.21.2 "Bundles of Bravery", came out in October 2024.