A Brief History of Time Vault

Of all the Magic cards in existence, none has a more insane history than Time Vault. Originally printed in Alpha, it is as old as the game of Magic the Gathering itself. It’s an artifact that costs {2}, and lets you tap it to take an extra turn, which is insane. The downside is that it comes into play tapped, it doesn’t untap during your untap step, and you need to skip an entire turn to untap it.

So, what the designers of this card intended is that you can give up a turn now to take another turn later, essentially storing away time in a vault. Which... is fine. If that was how it was used, but it wasn’t.

Because, you see, you don’t need to skip a turn in order to untap Time Vault, you just need to skip a turn in order to untap Time Vault NORMALLY. If you find some other way to untap Time Vault, then you’re golden.

The cheapest way to do this is with Twiddle, which costs {U}, but that’s an instant, so it goes to your graveyard upon use. What you really want is an Aura that can let you untap it every turn, so that you can take infinite turns. While no such Aura exists yet, this effect can be accomplished with a combination of two Auras: Animate Artifact and Instill Energy, which will cost you a total of {3}{G}{U} to cast.

But... wait. Did this work? Everyone seemed to think so, but there were a few people who disagreed. Remember, we’re in pre-Sixth Edition Magic, so the rules of the game are not yet formalized. It’s completely up to interpretation how the cards work. And some people would argue that Time Vault’s wording requires you to skip a turn to untap it, regardless of whether that untapping happens as a result of your untap step or as a result of a card effect.

Well, obviously... whoever is the bigger kid on the playground makes the rules. But... if we do look at official tournaments, we see that Wizards of the Coast seemed to think that Twiddle does indeed combo with Time Vault and lets you untap it freely. How do we know this? Because they restricted the card in 1994, being one of the cards on the initial banned and restricted list.

Two months later, they went one step further and just outright banned the card.

This was unprecedented. Until now, the only cards that were banned were ante cards and Shahrazad. Which had logistical issues to deal with. Time Vault was the first card in Magic’s history to be banned for power-level reasons.

In 1996, Wizards realized that they could fix Time Vault rather than leave it unable to be played. Look, if the problem was that it broke the game when combined with untapping effects, why not just... not have it work with untapping effects?

So they issued errata. Now, Time Vault says:

Does not untap as normal. If Time Vault is tapped and does not have a time counter, you may skip your turn to untap Time Vault and put a time counter on it. {T}: Remove the time counter from Time Vault to take an additional turn immediately before the next normal turn.

Perfect. Now, Time Vault can be unbanned. After all, untapping it with a card effect now does nothing, because you need time counters.

The problem? They went too far with it, as now Time Vault is damn near useless. No one is going to want to go through that hassle to take an extra turn.

But they were satisfied with this.

In 1998, they cleaned up the wording a bit, but kept it the same.

Then in 2004, they did so again.

These were just wording changes to bring it up in line with modern rules templating. It now says:

Time Vault comes into play tapped.
Time Vault doesn't untap during your untap step.
Skip your next turn: Untap Time Vault and put a time counter on it.
{T}, Remove all time counters from Time Vault: Take an extra turn after this one. Play this ability if only there's a time counter on Time Vault.

So yeah... Time Vault was still useless... for about a year.

Because in 2005, we got the release of Ravnica. And with it, the card Flame Fusillade. This little Aura can enchant a permanent, and then that permanent can tap to do 1 damage to the opponent. Given that you can just untap Time Vault whenever you want, simply by skipping a turn... this is broken beyond belief. Sure, just skip your next thousand turns to untap it a thousand times and do a thousand damage.

This completely broke the game.

Well, among players who were able to get a Time Vault, of course. Bear in mind that this is a rare from Alpha/Beta/Unlimited that has been put on the reserved list, so very few copies of it existed, and those that did were going for quite a lot of money.

So, yeah, this broke Legacy and Vintage wide open. Who cares about the time counter? You don’t even need to take extra turns. Just the fact that you can untap it whenever you want is good enough!

So... they addressed this in 2006 with more errata.

Time Vault comes into play tapped.
Time Vault doesn't untap during your untap step.
At the beginning of your upkeep you may untap Time Vault. If you do, put a time counter on it and you skip your next turn.
{T}, Remove all time counters from Time Vault: Take an extra turn after this one. Play this ability only if there's a time counter on Time Vault.

This fixes the unlimited untaps, as you can now only untap the card during your upkeep. This... did not go over well with Legacy/Vintage players who spent a ton of money on a playset of Time Vault, only to have it taken away from them, since Time Vault was now useless.

So... a lot of people complained.

And a few months later, Wizards of the Coast listened to their complaints. The problem with power-level errata was that it was inconsistent about when it was given and when it wasn’t, so buying cards wasn’t a safe investment, as they could just receive errata at any time.

And so... Wizards of the Coast decided to abandon power-level errata, and let Time Vault be broken again, figuring that they could ban or restrict it if it became too big of an issue.

Just kidding.

Yeah, so... Aaron Forsythe posted an article claiming that the power level errata on all cards would be undone... but... for some reason, they didn’t undo Time Vault, the one card that this was actually affecting in tournament play.

Instead, we got this errata:

Time Vault comes into play tapped.
If Time Vault would become untapped, instead choose one -- untap Time Vault and you skip your next turn; or Time Vault remains tapped.
{T}: Take an extra turn after this one.

Players were unhappy with this, pointing out the hypocrisy of saying that the power-level errata would be removed, and then not removing it. However, Aaron Forsythe defended this choice by pointing out that the original printed text of the card is ambiguous and allows for this wording too.

Yeah, remember that? That original issue of there being two ways to interpret this card? Well, here we are again. This time, Aaron Forsythe is arguing that the lesser-accepted way is the correct way.

You know who can sort this out? Richard Garfield. He created the card, so let’s just ask him what his intent was. And so... that’s what Wizards did. And... he said that he didn’t remember what his intent was. Well, gee, thanks for nothing, Richard.

I’m kidding, Richard Garfield is great. But he was unhelpful here. So Aaron Forsythe’s ruling stood, and Time Vault was a lot worse.

On the plus side, Guildpact was also released at this time, and with it came Mizzium Transreliquat, a card that does combo well with Time Vault.

At last, in 2008, Aaron Forsythe finally gave in, and restored Time Vault back to the way it was in the early days, enabling so many broken combos, and just banning it in Legacy and restricting it in Vintage in order to handle that issue.



(whisper) Yeah, of course I only made this thread to take advantage of the name "A Brief History of Time Vault". I'm never gonna pass up the chance to make a Stephen Hawking reference. Science is awesome. What, did you think I actually cared about a 1993 Magic card? Pfft. Get real.