Etherium is a decent card in the deck, but I feel it is not optimal.  Helm allows me to cheapen my other spells (including the thoughtcasts) to try and get the combo out fast in the early rounds... The risk of cheapening my opponent's spells is acceptable as ideally I need the combo out within the first 3 - 4 rounds. At the end of the day, I don't care what cards my opponent plays unless they disrupt my hand or hit my combo... and for those I save the counters or abeyances.  If the combo doesnt get out fast, the match is lost anyways.

Great point on the transmute.  I totally forgot that card existed. I will give that a shot.

I see your point on Thoughtcast.  It has worked fine, but I will test it out.

Yeah, DSC is my win condition (tezz will create the 5/5's if in game)... perhaps I can add a mill-effect as a secondary, but not sure what else would be a decent win condition to work with the vault.  I think it is ok to have the DSC as the only win condition, as the key of the deck is to combo early... once the combo is in I can coast.

Pithing needle does seem like a great SD card. I guess my problem is my limited knowledge of newer cards which prevents me from using the needle or chalice effectively (I stopped playing after tempest and just got back into it)... I should probably just research the most prevalent decks in todays meta and memorize the cards that make them run.

Thanks for the input, it has been useful already.

Here is my Vault deck as it stands in its casual form... I cannot afford Power Cards right now and in the local T1 tournaments (when they happen) they allow proxies... So when those come up the deck gets a face lift.

My main concern is the side deck (I admit I am not good in building one up). The forge is an expensive answer to destroy artifact spells... not sure I like it.  Leyline and tormod's todeal with the obvious grave decks. Abyss to deal with creature decks, but it really doesn't work that well against swarm producers and seems to get easily bounced.

Other notes:  Capsize is there as a catch-all to bounce unpleasant issues, hopefully using the Vault loop to do it over and over until all issues are dealt with.
Not sure if this is the best solution, but it is what I though worked best.  FOW and Pact are there just to prevent some nasty destroy all artifacts spell... that would screw my mana flow.
Intuitions and gifts are there to get the combo fast

Artifacts ( 13 )       

1 Time Vault         
1 Grim Monolith #      
4 Helm of Awakening      
1 Lotus Petal #         
1 Mana Vault #            
1 Chrome Mox #         
3 Voltaic Key          
1 Sol Ring #         

Spells ( 30 )

2 Tezzeret          
1 Demonic Tutor         
2 Pact of Negation       
2 Force of Will         
3 Intuition         
1 Gifts ungiven         
2 Abeyance         
4 Thoughtcast         
1 Mystical Tutor      
1 Regrowth         
1 Time Spiral         
1 Tinker         
1 Vampiric Tutor   
1 Wheel of Fortune      
1 Windfall         
1 Burning Wish         
1 Darksteel Colossus      
2 Argivian Find      
1 Capsize         
1 Yawgmoth's Will   

Lands ( 17 )

3 Seat of the Synod *
3 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
4 Glimmervoid *
4 Gemstone mine
1 Tolarian Academy

TOTAL ( 60 )

Sideboard ( 15 )

2 Leyline of the Void
2 The Abyss
1 Stripmine
1 Darksteel Forge
1 Acid Rain
4 Vindicate
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Time Spiral