It’s that time of the year – with summer comes the long-awaited Minecraft 1.21 update. This fresh update was released on the 13th of June and there are a lot of new changes to unpack. Named the Tricky Trials update, this update is larger than its typical predecessors. From new mobs to new structures and items, Mojang gave us tons of new features. Let’s dive in and explore everything there is new with Minecraft 1.21, The Tricky Trials update.
Trial Chambers in Minecraft 1.21
Unsurprisingly, 1.21 revolves around the new Trial Chambers structure, which can be located underground in any stone layer (more commonly in the Deepslate layers). The Trial Chambers utilises the latest copper and tuff blocks, such as the chiselled and brick tuff blocks. Here you can also find copper bulbs which glow at different brightness levels depending on their oxidisation stage – so it may be wise to bring an axe to remove the rust from the bulbs.
Inside the structure, you will find many unique rooms such as parkour challenges, chambers, vaults, bedrooms, and underwater rooms. Scattered throughout, you will also find many trail spawners which spawn waves of hostile mobs you must defeat to get the rewards within the spawners. After completion, there is a chance that the spawner may drop the Trial Key, which is used to open the vaults for loot.
If the player enters the Trial Chambers with the Bad Omen effect (which can only be obtained by drinking the ominous potion dropped by raid captains), all the Trial Spawners near the player turn into the Ominous Trial Spawners which are more challenging but give better rewards. There is a chance of Ominous Spawners dropping Ominous Vault Keys that are used to open Ominous Vaults which contain much better loot than normal Vaults.
The Breeze
The Breeze is a new mob which only spawns in the Trial Chambers. They are similar to the Blaze, except instead of being made of fire and shooting Fire Charges, it is made of wind and shoot Wind Charges. Although these wind charges are not highly damaging, they blast you high into the air, causing fall damage. Having Feather Falling IV on your boots will greatly help battle them. Killing a Breeze will drop Breeze Rods, which yield 4 Wind Charges each that you can use to leap into the air by shooting them at your feet. Wind Charges can also be used to break all fall damage if you use it right before hitting the ground.
Breeze Rods are also used in the recipe for the new Mace weapon. To craft a Mace you place a Heavy Core above a Breeze Rod in a crafting grid. The only way to obtain the Heavy Core is by completing an Ominous Trial and opening an Ominous Vault, which has a 7.5% chance of dropping the Heavy Core. The Mace is the most unique weapon in the game as the damage is not capped at a certain level. The higher you fall before impact, the greater the damage the mace deals to the target. Pairing this weapon with the new Breeze Charges packs quite a big punch. With a fall height of at least 127 blocks, the Mace can even one hit kill a Warden which is the bulkiest mob in the game, boasting 500 health points.
The Bogged
The Bogged is a new Skeleton variant like the Stray that spawns in Trial Chambers or any Swamp biome. What makes them different is that they shoot arrows of poison like how the strays shoot arrows of slowness. However, it is important to note that the Bogged’s reload time is much slower than a typical Skeleton’s.
The Crafter
The Crafter block is an upgraded redstone crafting table. This new Redstone component can be used to automate crafting. This is done by pumping the required recipe items into the Crafter via hoppers in the correct order (from top left to bottom right) and giving it a redstone signal to shoot the item out of the front. It is easy to set up for recipes that only use one block, such as chests, bamboo blocks, iron blocks, gold ingots, etc… However, for recipes that take more than one item, you will need well-timed item streams using hoppers and redstone clocks. The possibilities the Crafter introduces for Redstone enthusiasts are really endless.
New Potions in Minecraft 1.21
Minecraft 1.21 adds 4 new brewable potion items into the game. The Potion of Infestation is brewed by adding a stone block to Awkward Potions. This potion inflicts the Infested status effect which has a 10% chance of spawning 1 to 3 silverfish upon damage.
The Potion of Oozing is brewed by adding a slime block to Awkward Potions. This Potion inflicts the Oozing effect which spawns 2 Slime mobs upon death.
The Potion of Weaving is similar to the Oozing potion, as it causes a Cobweb square to spawn around the mob/player upon death. To brew this, you add a Cobweb to Awkward Potions. Additionally, the Weaving effect grants the mob/player faster movement through Cobwebs.
Lastly, the Potion of Wind Charging is made by adding a Breeze Rod to Awkward potions and causes the inflicted user to emit a burst of air similar to the Wind Charge upon death.
Other Features
Minecraft 1.21 also introduces two new armor trims found in the Trial Chambers called Flow and Bolt armor trims. Flow can only be dropped by the Ominous Vault while Bolt can only be dropped by the normal Vault. In the image above, the Flow trim is on the left, and Bolt is on the right.
1.21 also adds three new pottery sherds: Flow, Guster, and Scrape sherds. They can be found in the Trail Chamber structures already in the form of decorated pots. The update also adds 3 new music discs: Creator, Precipice, and Creator (music box). You have a small chance of obtaining the Precipice music disc through the normal Vaults in the Trial Chambers. Both Creator music discs can only be dropped by Ominous Vaults as a rare drop.
