Introducing the mace and ominous events

The snapshots, betas, and previews (or snabews as I call them) of the past two weeks have everything! There’s a new weapon (with its components and enchantments), a new trial chamber challenge (the final 1.21 feature, exclusive to snapshots for now), plus new armor trims, banner patterns, and pottery sherds! *deep breath* It’s a lot to cover, so let’s jump right into it. 

The mace, heavy core, and breeze rod 

The mace, heavy core, and breeze rod 

Smash into battle with a brand-new weapon: the mace! This heavy-hitter has a special smash attack that sends your foes flying, but there’s a catch – you have to land a hit as you’re falling from a high place. The longer you fall, the harder you will hit! Just make sure you time your hit right, because your fall damage will only be negated if you land the blow. 

Want to know how you obtain a mace and start practicing your smash hits? You have two components to gather. First, defeat a breeze to obtain a breeze rod because every mace needs a handle. Then, for the star of the show (the mace head), you will need a heavy core. These can be found inside vaults that you unlock using an ominous trial key – more on that later. 

The mace’s enchantments 

As if it wasn’t... impactful enough, the mace can also be enchanted in three unique ways! First, there’s the Density enchantment, which further increases the damage you deal based on your fall distance, compared to a regular smash attack. Then, there’s Breach, which allows the mace to penetrate armor, dealing additional damage to enemies based on the enchantment level. And finally, there’s Wind Burst, which launches you up in the air when you successfully land a smash attack, while also knocking back enemies farther compared to an unenchanted mace. So whether you prefer to deal heavy blows or leap across the battlefield, now you can enchant the mace to match your style! 

Mace enchantments are only available in Java snapshots for now, but we'll let you know as soon as we bring them to Bedrock beta and preview.

New armor trims, pottery sherds, and banner patterns 

Craving a new look or fresh decor for your build? You can now also try out two additional armor trims, two banner patterns, and three pottery sherds. Get the armor trims and banner patterns from vaults and grab the pottery sherds from inside the trial chambers. Now that’s what I call a souvenir! These really put my humble magnet collection to shame. 

And now, for the grand, unnerving finale... 

Ominous events 

Minecraft is all about choice, and very often players choose creativity and adventure. Just as often, they choose violence. Of the fantasy, ESRB +10-rated kind, of course. Inflicting hardship on yourself is a very Minecrafter thing to do: Hardcore mode, village raids, diving into the Nether completely unprepared... I could list Mojang-made and player-created challenges forever. And today, we’re adding ominous events to that list, the grand finale of 1.21 features! 

You might already be familiar with Bad Omen, but in this update, it's being expanded to give access to an optional experience in the trial chambers. All the optional experiences triggered by Bad Omen are now known as ominous events, and they're catered to bold players who want more punishing (but also more rewarding!) adventures in Minecraft. 

To gain a Bad Omen, you must drink the contents of an ominous bottle, a new item coming as part of the 1.21 Update that can be dropped by a defeated raid captain or found in a trial chamber vault. You will no longer automatically gain the Bad Omen status effect when defeating a raid captain, so drinking the contents of an ominous bottle is the only way to get it. What happens after you drink the contents of a bottle very clearly named “ominous”, I hear you cry? Well... 

Right now, there are two types of ominous events: 

1. Village raids 

You might already be familiar with village raids, which we introduced a few years back as part of the Village & Pillage update. These will now fall under the ominous events category, and there will be some small changes to how they work. They are still triggered by a player entering a village with the Bad Omen status effect. Once a player enters the village, the Bad Omen turns into a Raid Omen, and when that expires, brace yourself because the raid will start! 

2. Ominous trials 

Ominous trials are available in Java snapshots as of today, and they take the challenge of trial chambers to a new level. First, you need to gain the Bad Omen effect and head to a trial chamber. Once you’re within range of a trial spawner, it will become ominous and convert your Bad Omen into a Trial Omen, thus starting the ominous trial. While you still have that Trial Omen, any trial spawner that you approach will turn ominous. Ominous trial spawners spew out mobs that wear equipment more often, and spawn potions and projectiles above nearby mobs and players. Once you’ve dealt with all of that and a spawner goes into cooldown mode, you have a chance to receive an ominous trial key. Find an ominous vault (hint: they’re trickier to locate than regular ones) and use this key on it to get some rare loot as a reward for going through the gauntlet. 

Ominous trials and the new ominous events system are only available in Java snapshots for now, but stay tuned. We’ll let you know as soon as they come to Bedrock beta and preview, too! 

We hope you have fun smashing your way through ominous trials in your new trimmed armor, wielding your new mace, and patterning (definitely a word) your banners. As usual, we’re releasing these features into testing (or snabews – still trying to make that happen) so we can iterate on them based on your feedback, so please give us your feedback on these new 1.21 features here and report bugs at bugs.mojang.com! 

How can I test 1.21 features? 

You can test these features by enabling snapshots for Minecraft: Java Edition, or previews/beta for Minecraft: Bedrock Edition. Please note that ominous events are only currently available in Java snapshots.  

To install a snapshot, open up the Minecraft Launcher and enable snapshots in the "Installations" tab. To enable preview/beta for Minecraft: Bedrock Edition, follow these instructions. 

If you are a Realm owner, you can also play the new snapshots, betas*, and previews* on your Realm! Any player who has an active Realms subscription is eligible to create a free testing Realm, so you can try out the new features with friends. Find more information on how to enable snapshots for Java Realms, and how to enable betas/previews on Bedrock Edition Realms*! 

*Preview is available for Minecraft: Bedrock Edition Realms on Xbox, Windows 10/11, and iOS. Betas are available on Android (Google Play). 

Important note: Testing versions can corrupt your world, so please backup and/or run them in a different save folder from your main worlds.