It's an excellent card. It's not broken on its own, and wasn't smashed to pieces in that regard until Urza's block. I could see it making honorable mention as the Power 10th. A lot of people say this can't be true, as on its own, Time Vault is considerably horrid. But, what about the Moxen? Black Lotus? Oh, they're good, but they require other cards to be put to full effect, just like the Vault.
That said, I think people are blowing this out of proportion. There are certainly answers to this card once played, and while you might have to be prepared and in the end somewhat lucky, things like a single green could very well ruin the Combo player's day once he has an active Vault. That's the beauty of Magic: there is no single perfect card. Black lotus goes away after tapped. The Moxen can be shut down by a turn 0 Chalice of the Void for 0 mana down payment. Lightning Bolt and Ancestral Recall can be countered. Force of Will needs another card and life point to really be broken.
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Posted By:
Lateralis0ne
(7/18/2011 4:23:30 PM)
OK that first post was.... Odd to say the least...
The reason this card was great was because before 6th edition when WOTC ***ed all over us, and before the sissy restricted list, you could use Time Walk, fork it like 8 times, and use this to help you store turns. It was easier than forking a bunch of Time Walk, because then you had to actually use dice to show how many turns you had. (I've had to do this before because it was hard to keep track when there is no restricted shit.)
Posted By:
SlackWareWolf
(7/11/2009 1:20:44 AM)
133-1-1-312 -1-(-)/-\1\1 131_/-\(1< 1_()-1-\_/5 -- Better than black lotus
Posted By:
Th3_Dark_On3
(5/25/2009 10:53:53 PM)
See though, the way the wording goes, things that untap it won't work. It says on the card that you must skip a turn to untap it. Maybe that's being a bit *** on the wording, but as far as I'm concerned, trying to use an artifact or spell or something along those lines does not work. Argue it all you want, the card says must. That means that is the only thing that'll do it. The only card I've personally seen with this card that works is rings of brighthearth
Posted By:
PolskiSuzeren
(8/18/2009 7:31:30 PM)
How about a turn 1 Amulet of Vigor then this on turn 2.
Posted By:
Wyldblayde
(4/16/2010 9:56:17 AM)
The original text of this card makes it clear that they intended you to skip a turn every time you untap it. I'm not sure why they reworded the Oracle text to make it immensely stronger. Here's how I think the Oracle text should read:
"Time Vault enters the battlefield tapped.
Time Vault doesn't untap during your untap step.
If Time Vault becomes untapped, you skip your next turn.
If you would begin your turn while Time Vault is tapped, you may skip that turn instead. If you do, untap Time Vault.
Tap: Take an extra turn after this one."
With that extra third line in there, I think it would maintain its original functionality as intended. Of course, that would also drop the value of the card to less than $10 since it would become near-useless.
Posted By:
drunyon
(7/24/2010 4:08:10 PM)
Bought the beta version of this card for like forty bucks right before Wizards decided to change the oracle text and all hell broke loose. Wish I bought ten, heh.
Posted By:
Gishra
(8/7/2010 8:15:18 PM)
Not power 9 worthy because its no good outside of combos, but certainly is a fun card. One time i played my steel city vault deck against a fish deck.. earlier that game i FoW'd something pitching my inkwell leviathan. I ended up winning with the vault-key and attacking with goblin welders! Note- consider your win condition if you run the combo!
Posted By:
samildanach32
(8/13/2010 12:32:41 AM)
Assuming I'm right, Rings of Brighthearth should give an infinite turn combo too.
Posted By:
CrazyLou
(8/14/2010 11:25:53 PM)
With a more restrictive wording, this card would still be problematically good, since Rings of Brighthearth and Mizzium Transreliquat both work with the proposed wording, and both cards cost a measly 3 mana. So, it's probably just fine to let this behemoth of a combo engine exist in its current, very broken form, since it's not all too hard to make a less broken form work anyway :P
Posted By:
izzet_guild_mage
(8/16/2010 4:40:58 PM)