How to Get Ominous Trial Key in Minecraft 1.21

Apart from regular trial spawners, the new ominous trials will deliver a completely different combat experience in the trial chambers. The main reward of the ominous trial is loot from a new variant of the vault block, the ominous vault. To get it, you will first need to get your hands on an ominous trial key in Minecraft 1.21. In this guide, you’ll learn what the ominous trial key is, how to get it, and how to use it.

What Is the Ominous Trial Key

Ominous trial key is a special type of trial key. It looks far scarier than the regular variant due to three spooky skulls as the head of the key. It is also the color of the fully oxidized copper, instead of the non-oxidized trial key color.

Feel free to check out our guide on how to find trial chambers, as this item is only obtainable there.

How to Get the Ominous Trial Key

The ominous trial key is only available during ominous trials, which means a little bit of preparation is needed first. Follow the steps below to get the ominous trial key in Minecraft.

Step 1: Get the Bad Omen Effect

First, you need to get the Bad Omen effect. To do so, find a pillager outpost or a pillager patrol and kill the pillager captain with the ominous banner. This mob will drop an ominous bottle. You can also get the ominous bottle from vaults in trial chambers.

Step 2: Consume Ominous Bottle

You will need to consume the Ominous Bottle right before you reach a trial spawner to get the Bad Omen status effect.

Once you get close to the trial spawner with Bad Omen, this effect will instantly transform into Trial Omen.

Step 3: Ominous Trial Spawner Activated

With the Trial Omen now active, the trial spawner will change into an ominous trial spawner. It is far more dangerous than the normal trial spawner, as mobs will often have equipment and there will even be projectiles and potion clouds spawning above you and the mobs.

The Bad Omen level will determine how long the Trial Omen effect lasts, so the higher the level – the more time you have.

Step 4: Defeat Mobs to Get Ominous Trial Key

But what do you need that time for? Well, for defeating as many ominous trials as possible. Once you kill the mobs summoned by the ominous trial spawner, the spawner will eject some items as a reward and go into cooldown for 30 minutes.

One of these items can be the ominous trial key you’re looking for. There is a 30% chance it’ll be chosen, so you’ll probably have to take down a few ominous trial spawners to get it.

Once the Trial Omen effect wears off, you won’t be able to activate any more ominous trial spawners. So, keep a couple of ominous bottles in your inventory to replenish the Trial Omen effect and get as many ominous trial keys as possible.

What Does the Ominous Trial Key Unlock

So, you’ve got the ominous trial key, what do you do with it? Well, it has a single use, similar to the regular trial key. The ominous trial key can be used to unlock ominous vaults. Those are strange-looking blocks that generate in trial chambers usually higher up.

They are harder to spot than normal vaults but do have some copper grates, red-glazed terracotta, and candles around them so you can locate them easily. They can be unlocked by using an ominous trial key on them. Then, they will spit out some items that will be rarer and more valuable than the normal vault’s rewards. Some of them can include:

• Enchanted books
• Diamonds
• Ominous bottles
• Flow armor trim
• Enchanted golden apple
• Heavy core

So, if you want to make the mace introduced in Minecraft 1.21, you’ll need to search through quite a few ominous vaults to get the heavy core.

With that, now you know what the ominous trial key is all about in Minecraft. It allows for a greater reward but is also balanced out with higher risk. So, if you love challenges in Minecraft, obtaining an ominous trial key will be a very fun task.