Vault Cards are an endless rewards system in Borderlands 3 that adds challenges and new loot to the game. The Vault Cards are part of The Director’s Cut [DLC6] which can be purchased individually or is included in the Season Pass 2 and Borderlands 3 Ultimate Edition. You can see the Borderlands 3 Vault Cards as Gearbox Software’s version of a “Battle Pass” as they provide something to strive for. All the Experience Points (XP) you earn will also go towards the active Vault Card. This way you can level up a Vault Card and unlock unique cosmetics and exclusive gear.
Table of Content
Borderlands 3 Vault Cards
Borderlands 3 The Director’s Cut contains 3 unique Vault Cards each with their own theme and rewards. Each Vault Card features a total of 28 unique rewards, including 24 themed cosmetics and four new pieces of Legendary gear.
Vault Card 1 – Fallen Heroes
The First Vault Card is themed around the fallen heroes in the Borderlands Universe.
Vault Card 2 – Welcome to Pandora
The Second Vault Card is themed around your favorite wannabee Vault Hunters.
Vault Card 3 – Bunker Masters
The Third Vault Card is themed around Bunkers & Badasses and Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands.
How to Activate Vault Cards
The Borderlands 3 Vault Cards have their own dedicated tab in the Echo menu. You need to activate one of the available cards from this screen. You can only have 1 Vault Card active at a time. All the Experience Points you gain will also count toward the activated Vault Card.
Vault Cards can be swapped out at any time. There is no time limit or so-called “Seasons” on these, therefore, you don’t have to worry about missing out.
How do Vault Cards work?
- Activate a Vault Card
- Earn Experience Points (XP)
- Level Up your Vault Card
- Open up Vault Card Chests
- Earn Loot and Keys
- Use Keys to unlock more loot
You can level up a Vault Card by gathering enough Experience Points (XP). Your progression is displayed by the purple XP bar at the bottom of the game. XP isn’t exclusively going to the Vault Card, you will still level up your character or Guardian Rank.
You gain XP by simply playing the game. Kill enemies, Complete Missions or Challenges.
Every time you level up your Vault Card you can open up a Vault Card Chest. These will provide you with various rewards. Sometimes these are direct items, other times, they are keys that let you unlock rewards from the Vault Card. Each Vault Card has its own set of rewards, including weapon skins, character heads/skins, emotes, and more.
- Vault Card 1: Fallen Heroes Rewards
- Vault Card 2: Welcome to Pandora Rewards
- Vault Card 3: Bunker Masters Rewards
Vault Card Rewards
Opening a Vault Card Chest can reward you with one of the following rewards.
| Reward | Chance |
|---|---|
| 1 Cosmetic Item (Current Vault Card) | 35.76% |
| 1 Vault Card Key (Current Vault Card) | 29.81% |
| 3 Vault Card Keys (Current Vault Card) | 14.90% |
| Eridium | 14.90% |
| Diamond Key (Diamond Armory) | 4.62% |
| Black Market Loot | 1.49% |
Borderlands 3’s Vault Cards have built-in duplicate protection for Cosmetic Items, therefore, you will get a Vault Card Key instead of a duplicate Cosmetic Item.
Vault Card Keys are unique for each Vault Card and therefore don’t unlock items from any of the other Vault Cards.
Vault Card Keys
The Vault Card Keys let you unlock the Legendary Gear and Cosmetics from the associated Vault Card. You can unlock these items in any order you want. Each Vault Card has its own unique keys and therefore you can’t unlock items from any of the other Vault Cards.
You can claim Cosmetic Items only once but the legendary gear, at the top of the Vault Card, can be claimed as often as you like.
Vault Card Gear scales to your character’s current level. Weapons don’t have an Anoint the first time but will have one the second time you claim the item.
Vault Card Tips & Tricks
- You can preview the Vault Card items before unlocking them. Cosmetics will display when highlighting them but with gear, you need to go into inspect mode.
- Check out the rewards before deciding which Vault Cards to activate.
- You level up your Vault Cards by grinding XP, here is my guide for fast XP farming.
- You can activate an XP Booster from the Borderlands Science Machine to quickly level up your Vault Card.
- Activate the Cartels Event to increase the enemies.
- Unlock the single-key items first with your earned Vault Keys because the duplicate protection will give you better rewards.
- You can claim loot from any of the Vault Cards when playing Arms Race. This gives you an advantage while playing this roguelite game mode.
Vault Card Challenges
Borderlands 3 Vault Cards add daily and weekly challenges to the game. There are over 100 different challenges for you to complete. Daily challenges are easy to complete while weekly challenges are more challenging to complete. Here are a few examples of challenges:
| Challenge | Type | Reward |
|---|---|---|
| Kill a specific named enemy | Daily | 50 Eridium |
| Kill 30 enemies with a vehicle | Daily | 50 Eridium |
| Complete Slaughter Star 3000 | Daily | 50 Eridium |
| Kill 300 enemies with a specific elemental damage type | Weekly | 1100 Eridium |
| Kill 5 Raid Bosses | Weekly | 1100 Eridium |
| Kill 250 enemies with a specific manufacturer’s weapon | Weekly | 1100 Eridium |
Completing Daily challenges are rewarded with 50 Eridium each. Completing the Weekly challenge will reward you with 1100 Eridium. When you complete all the challenges in a week will add up to 2250 Eridium.
Eridium can be used to open the door to the Raid Boss Hemovorous the Invincible, Reroll Anoints on gear, or purchase cosmetics at Crazy Earl.
The Daily Challenges will reset at 9:00 AM PT every day and the Weekly Challenges will reset at 9:00 AM PT every Thursday
Vault Card Challenges Guide
Vault Card Challenges will assign you the task of defeating specific enemies, here is an overview where you can easily complete those challenges.
Regular Mobs
| Enemy Type | Location |
|---|---|
| Badasses | Any Circle of Slaughter |
| Enforcers | The Slaughter Shaft on Pandora |
| Goliaths | Multiple Goliaths usually spawn near Road Dog in the Splinterlands (Pandora) |
| Guardians | The Guardian Takedown on Minos Prime. At the end of Neon Arterial on Promethea (Travel back from Forgotten Basilica) |
| Hags | Konrad’s Hold on Pandora |
| Heavies | Athenas and Slaughterstar 3000 |
| Jabbers | Cistern of Slaughter on Promethea Trial of Instinct Near Red Jabber in Ambermire on Eden-6 |
| Maliwan Mechs | Farm GenIVIV in Voracious Canopy on Eden-6 |
| Nekrobugs | Tazendeer Ruins on Nekrotafeyo |
| Nogs | Slaughterstar 3000 |
| Overspheres | Trial of Discipline |
| Psychos | Slaughter Shaft on Pandora |
| Rakk | The Droughts on Pandora |
| Ratch | The first area in the Meridian Outskirts (Promethea) or Maliwan Takedown (Midnight’s Cairn). |
| Saurians | Cistern of Slaughter on Promethea |
| Service Bots | In Lectra City or Meridian Metroplex on Promethea |
| Skags | The Droughts on Pandora |
| Spiderants | Near Antalope in Devils Razor on Pandora |
| Tinks | The Anvil on Eden-6 |
| Varkids | Near Manvark Konrad’s Hold on Pandora. Cistern of Slaughter on Promethea |
Named Enemies
Borderlands 3 has a ton of named enemies/bosses and occasionally you need to seek them out. If you need to defeat 100 bosses you could easily defeat Shiv a bunch of times.
Raid Bosses
The following bosses count towards Raid Bosses. If you set your game to Mayhem Level 6 while having an M10 Build, you can easily kill Hemovorous and fast travel back to the beginning of the map and jump right back in without paying any Eridium but you need to keep Vermivorous alive.
| Raid Boss | Location |
|---|---|
| Hemovorous the Invincible | Darkthirst Dominion on Pandora |
| Wotan the Invincible | Maliwan Takedown on Midnight’s Cairn |
| Scourge the Invincible Martyr | Guardian Takedown on Minos Prime |
| Anathema the Relentless | Guardian Takedown on Minos Prime |
Vault Card FAQ
At this time, Vault Cards can only be accessed by owning the Director’s Cut add-on, and can’t be purchased individually or separately.
No, but each Vault Card will present three Daily Challenges, so when all three Vault Cards are available, you can complete up to nine Daily Challenges each day! Similarly, each Vault Card has its own Weekly Challenge, so you can complete a maximum of three each week. Note that you can only progress Challenges on the Vault Card you have active, so make sure you’ve activated the right one.
Currently, there are no plans to allow on-demand rerolling of Daily or Weekly Challenges, regardless of whether or not they’ve been completed. New Challenges will populate in your Vault Cards every day at 9:00 AM PT / 12:00 PM ET / 5:00 PM UTC for Daily Challenges, and Thursdays at 9:00 AM PT / 12:00 PM ET / 5:00 PM UTC for Weekly Challenges.
All you completionists should strive to collect all the items on each Vault Card, but Vault Cards will never technically be “completed” because they have no level cap, and will therefore always keep offering rewards. You can keep earning Vault Card levels even after you’ve scored all of that Card’s gear to earn Diamond Keys, Eridium, and higher-level versions of the Card’s gear.
Nope—the rewards for Vault Cards are account-based, so you can redeem their rewards on any character. Vault Hunter Skins and Weapon Skins for each Vault Card will unlock on all of your characters. If you happen to get gear that would be perfect for a different character, you can transfer it with your bank aboard Sanctuary III just like any other drop!