[FREE Article]So Many Insane Plays: Dear Mark Gottlieb, Please Fix Time Vault

[Smmenen]

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/16079.html

Editor's blurb:

Monday, June 30th - Time Vault… a card that’s caused consternation in the Vintage community for years. It seems that, with every new set release, there are calls to "fix" this tricky and intriguing card. In an attempt to have this card returned to its original functionality, Stephen Menendian calls on Mark Gottlieb for aid…

[Phoenix888]

PS - For those of you concerned with the potential power of Time Vault in Eternal formats, especially with Voltaic Key, it should be no more broken than Painter’s Servant plus Grindstone, and certainly fairer than Flash, which existed in Vintage for a year without doing much more than annoying some people.

So do you still stand by your statement that Vault/Key and Painter/Grindstone are of the same power level?

[Tha Gunslinga]

Dear Steve,
Thanks for ruining our format.

[Smmenen]

PS - For those of you concerned with the potential power of Time Vault in Eternal formats, especially with Voltaic Key, it should be no more broken than Painter’s Servant plus Grindstone, and certainly fairer than Flash, which existed in Vintage for a year without doing much more than annoying some people.

So do you still stand by your statement that Vault/Key and Painter/Grindstone are of the same power level?

Whoops!  























Just kidding.    


I think a couple of factors have made Time Vault more powerful than it otherwise might have been.    First and foremost, the printing of Tezzeret, the Time Vault swiss army knife.   Another thing was the restrictions last June.   In some ways, Painter is just better in a Gush shell than Time Vault, since you get to support Red Blasts, which are insane in the Flash/Gush metagame, and neither component is restricted.   Also, in a metagame with Flash, Time Vault is tame.   Time Vault is today overrated, slightly, as a win condition.  It does not go into every deck.  For example, it's not optimal in TPS nor is it optimal in Grow or non-Rod Fish strategies.  

[Harlequin]

Time Vault is today overrated, slightly, as a win condition.

I would say that its slightly underrated, because many believe things like this...

For example, it's not optimal in TPS nor is it optimal in Grow or non-Rod Fish strategies. 

I am a firm believer that if you meet the following 2 criteria - you are at a disadvantage if you aren’t running TV-Key.
1) You are running Black, with tutors (and even more so if you're running tinker).
2) you are NOT running rod.

5c stacks, Staxless Stax, ANT, TPS, Grimlong variants... IMO All should be running TV-Key.  Old pre-restriction Gush I'll touch on in a second, but perhaps it gains a 3rd invisible criteria would permit it to not run TV-Key in a parallel dimension where both gush and TV-Key are legal.

Its two cards that are low commitment, low risk, with high-reward combo that can be played easily in the first 2 turns.  If your opponent has TV-Key you can expect that perhaps 1 in 15 games they will steel an easy turn 1 or 2 win with force backer.  Another 1 in X games they will win in the classic "oops I win" fassion of vintage where they just brainstorm or into combo piece, combo piece, force/drain.  You cannot prevent this from happening.  All you can do is hope to ~match~ those random shut-outs with random shut-outs of your own.  Thus you should run these 2 cards.   

The 3rd hidden criteria is probably Fastbond.  TV-Key is a two card combo, but Fastbond is a 1 card combo with any old Gushbond list.  This criteria is mostly irrelevant because Gush is restricted.  I only bring it up because Steven mentioned Grow.

[Smmenen]

I have tested Vault/Key pretty intensively in TPS, and I am of the firm conclusion that it's suboptimal in that deck, yet it has the highest density of tutors of any archetype in Vintage.   If it's not optimal there (and I've explained in other places the reasons), then I think your conclusion is overbroad.     I'm pretty sure that Key Vault is obviously wrong in 5c Stax as well. 

[Twaun007]

I'm pretty sure that Key Vault is obviously wrong in 5c Stax as well.

You should ask Nam Tran about this. He has integrated Vault/Key into his 5c stax deck and has has zero problems finding it. I have also integrated it into my B/R stax list and have no trouble abusing it. It is straight busted.

[Smmenen]

I'm pretty sure that Key Vault is obviously wrong in 5c Stax as well.

You should ask Nam Tran about this. He has integrated Vault/Key into his 5c stax deck and has has zero problems finding it. I have also integrated it into my B/R stax list and have no trouble abusing it. It is straight busted.

Ok, well, I'll tentatively hedge my statement regarding stax.    Original Stax lists (Ducktape) actually ran Time Vault.  It has synergies with cards like Tangle Wire and Smokestack, so unlike a deck like Fish, where Time Vault or Key by itself is completley dead, Stax actually has secondary uses.  

Still, I'm skeptical of whether it's optimal or not.  

I stand by it being wrong in TPS and Grow (post-restriction, like my Waterbury deck).

[Harlequin]

I've tested it in ANT, TPS, and Staxless Stax (post restriction changes).  While I agree it was least relevent in TPS, I still think it won games that I had no business winning.  Could another bomb done the same thing? Maybe.  And my testing here was the shallowest of the decks I tested.  So I could perhaps concede TPS to the more experianced player with broader testing.

In ANT it means you can shorten your Ad Nauseams.  You don't have to dig as deep if you flip black totur + combo peice.  You can stop there without needed to find a storm win.  I tested this back a while ago, right when drain-tezz was starting to really firm up.  I won't say it was better than Tezz.  But ANT+TVKey seemed much better than old ANT lists.

In staxless stax, a deck I have been testing on the side sinse the b/r anoucement, TVK has been nothing short of amazing.  In early testing, plenty of games were won where I randomly and effortlessly went "Oh, I guess I take infinte turns..."  Then I started to keep the combo in the back of my mind, and tweek my choices slightly, and found it to be an integral part of the deck.  Why weld in Trike when you can take infinte turns?  Why not go: Shop -> TV, Key, Mox -> win?  Its not common, but it happens.  And that's the point I'm trying to make.

[GrandpaBelcher]

I've put TV-Key in RGB Belcher, even before Grim Monolith got unrestricted.  It's solid.

[Twaun007]

I've tested it in ANT, TPS, and Staxless Stax (post restriction changes).  While I agree it was least relevent in TPS, I still think it won games that I had no business winning.  Could another bomb done the same thing? Maybe.  And my testing here was the shallowest of the decks I tested.  So I could perhaps concede TPS to the more experianced player with broader testing.

In ANT it means you can shorten your Ad Nauseams.  You don't have to dig as deep if you flip black totur + combo peice.  You can stop there without needed to find a storm win.  I tested this back a while ago, right when drain-tezz was starting to really firm up.  I won't say it was better than Tezz.  But ANT+TVKey seemed much better than old ANT lists.

In staxless stax, a deck I have been testing on the side sinse the b/r anoucement, TVK has been nothing short of amazing.  In early testing, plenty of games were won where I randomly and effortlessly went "Oh, I guess I take infinte turns..."  Then I started to keep the combo in the back of my mind, and tweek my choices slightly, and found it to be an integral part of the deck.  Why weld in Trike when you can take infinte turns?  Why not go: Shop -> TV, Key, Mox -> win?  Its not common, but it happens.  And that's the point I'm trying to make.

I fully agree. The oops I win factor is present way to much. With the new un-restrictions assembling Vault Key is unbelievably easy. Here is a sample from my B/R Stax deck.

4 Goblin Welder
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
3 Entomb
2 Sensie's Driving Top
2 Bazaar of Baghdad

This tutor/digging package allows me to find Vault/Key by turn 3 consistently and with all that going on my opponent also has to worry about Wasteland, Strip Mine, and other lock components coming down.

Vault Key is unreal.

EDIT:

I've put TV-Key in RGB Belcher, even before Grim Monolith got unrestricted.  It's solid.

Christ, now we have seen it all. I just need a way to fit it into Ichorid and we can all have the same c-c-combo.

[ashiXIII]

PS - For those of you concerned with the potential power of Time Vault in Eternal formats, especially with Voltaic Key, it should be no more broken than Painter’s Servant plus Grindstone, and certainly fairer than Flash, which existed in Vintage for a year without doing much more than annoying some people.

So do you still stand by your statement that Vault/Key and Painter/Grindstone are of the same power level?

Whoops!  























Just kidding.    


I think a couple of factors have made Time Vault more powerful than it otherwise might have been.    First and foremost, the printing of Tezzeret, the Time Vault swiss army knife.   Another thing was the restrictions last June.   In some ways, Painter is just better in a Gush shell than Time Vault, since you get to support Red Blasts, which are insane in the Flash/Gush metagame, and neither component is restricted.   Also, in a metagame with Flash, Time Vault is tame.   Time Vault is today overrated, slightly, as a win condition.  It does not go into every deck.  For example, it's not optimal in TPS nor is it optimal in Grow or non-Rod Fish strategies.  

TV/Key is still ridiculously broken without Tezzeret.

and perhaps the combo not being optimal in TPS, Gro, or non-Rod fish would explain none of those decks being viable right now.