How to open an Ominous Vault in Minecraft

Unlock some of the best loot you can find.

Standing by an Ominous Vault in Minecraft.
Screenshot by Dot Esports

Trial Chambers are packed with amazing loot you can collect in Minecraft, but one of the best ways to actually get this loot is rather tricky to navigate. Ominous Vaults are hidden loot dispensers that grant rare and powerful items if you manage to open them.

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The process for unlocking Ominous Vaults is pretty tricky and requires you to complete a few special prerequisites before you can claim the rewards. All of the loot you can get from them is worth the effort, though, so here’s how to open an Ominous Vault in Minecraft.

How to unlock an Ominous Vault in Minecraft

Standing by an Ominous Vault with a key in Minecraft.
You need a key, a status effect, and some strong gear. Screenshot by Dot Esports

To open an Ominous Vault in Minecraft, you need to use an Ominous Trial Key on an Ominous Vault with the Trial Omen effect active. There are a couple of specific requirements you need to meet to make all of this happen at once.

First, work on getting the Bad Omen effect from an Ominous Bottle. Ominous Vaults can only be opened after you complete an ominous trial, which means you need to convert all regular spawners into ominous ones using this effect. Bad Omen becomes Trial Omen to trigger an ominous trial as soon as you get within sight of a regular spawner in a Trial Chamber.

With this status effect active or an Ominous Bottle in your inventory ready to be used, set out to find a Trial Chamber. Once you’re inside, look around for an Ominous Vault. These vaults are dark gray and black blocks with an eerie face and glowing red eyes.

Now that you have the right effect active and you know where you can claim loot, get to work battling all mobs that come at you from ominous trial spawners. You might face Bogged, Skeletons, Zombies, Breeze, and other such enemies as they spawn throughout the trial.

Keep battling until the ominous trial ends, which occurs when all of the spawned mobs have been vanquished. As long as you obtained an Ominous Trial Key during the battle, you can now return to the Ominous Vault you previously found to unlock it and claim your rewards.

An Ominous Trial Key on top of a spawner in Minecraft.
If you’re not lucky, it might take a while. Screenshot by Dot Esports

There’s only a 30 percent chance you’ll get an Ominous Trial Key after completing an ominous trial event, so you might be battling for a long time before you manage to get one. If you don’t get a key on the first try, keep hunting for regular spawners you can convert to ominous trial spawners and keep vanquishing the mobs that appear until luck finally grants you the key you need to open an Ominous Vault.

Author
Image of Kacee Fay
Kacee Fay
Staff Writer at Dot Esports covering new releases and a wide array of topics including Minecraft, Disney Dreamlight Valley, Phasmophobia, general gaming, streaming, and more. She has been avidly writing and gaming her whole life and now spends her time combining the two. Kacee graduated from San Diego State University in 2021 with a Bachelor’s Degree in English and a Certificate in Creative Editing and Publishing. She then joined Dot Esports as a Freelance Writer in 2022 before transitioning to a Staff Writer in 2023. In her spare time, she enjoys buying more books than she can read, gaming alone or with friends, drinking too much tea, attending concerts, fangirling over movies and television, listening to music, and spending time with her family, friends, and pets, who are the most important parts of her world.