Time Vault Errata

[Red_Wyrm]

Good morning, afternoon, evening to everyone wherever you all are.

So I was at Walmart, and I was thinking about the card Time Vault. It is banned because it is broken. It is broken because it is so easy to untap an artifact with a card like icy manipulator or voltaic key. They decided to do some crazy errata to it where they like put a time counter on it or something weird that was absolutely confusing. From my understanding it is the only card to ever be changed with the intention of fundamentally changing how it works (I know it was in an attempt to get it to work how it was intended, but intention and reality aren't the same.) If they were willing to make a convulated new text box for the card, why couldn't they just say this artifact has shroud? I mean that would stop most untapping shenanigans that I can think of, forcing you to have to skip a turn to untap the artifact. It seems a lot simpler than what they chose to do (and eventually undo.)

Okay I don't know if shroud was a thing back then. I have zero evidence for one way or they other, but cards like Thrun, the last troll have keyword abilities like Hexproof without explicity stating it. There is a sliver that grants menace, but it spells it out because menace wasn't a mechanics yet. So couldn't they say, if shroud wasn't a keyword, Time Vault cannot be the target of spells or abilities, or something even more specific like, "Time vault can only be untapped by skipping a turn."

Just a thought, let me know if there is a reason they couldn't/wouldn't do this. I mean this was before I was a person, so I definitely have far from personal experience with it. hopefully some of you guys do.

[Soren841]

? There has been no Time Vault errata.. at least not currently being used.. what even is the question you're asking?

[Red_Wyrm]

? There has been no Time Vault errata.. at least not currently being used.. what even is the question you're asking?

At one point in time they changed how the card worked instead of outright banning it. Then it was too confusing so they changed it back to how it was and banned it,

[Soren841]

Ok so what's the question then?

[Red_Wyrm]

Ok so what's the question then?

They tried to prevent tap/untap manipulation through voltaic key, etc. By changing how it worked. If they were willing to basically rework the entire card, couldn't they just have erratted it to have shroud so no icy manipulators can untap it?

[Soren841]

I think they just gave up the idea of changing a card in order to keep it from being banned. They don't errata banned cards in order to unban them, they just leave it banned.

[WWolfe]

Time Vault was a card that was just too good from the start, there's very little they could have done to make it where it wasn't victim of the ban hammer. It was banned for the better part of 7 years then they tried unbanning it with the errata, it really didn't fix anything so they banned it again.

[Judaspriester]

Btw, the wording on Thrun, the last troll is afaik older than the keyword hexproof. Same goes for Uril, the Miststalker. But if you check Scryfall for the current rules of the cards, both have the keyword hexproof now.