Now, more than ever, Magic: The Gathering is a game all about creatures. While the opposite was true at the game’s inception, the pendulum has well and truly swung the other way. While removal and board wipes can help hold off these powerhouses temporarily, sometimes a more permanent solution is required. In such cases, Portcullis, a hidden gem from way back in Stronghold, is just the MTG card for the job.
Portcullis MTG
Portcullis is a relic from the Wild West days of MTG design, when bizarre, game-changing concepts were par for the course. While active, the card exiles any creature that enters while two or more other creatures are in play. Timed correctly, this essentially limits all four players in a Commander pod to just two creatures between them, which is a massive shift from the norm.
Naturally, this makes Portcullis ideal as a stalling tool in more Control-oriented decks. If you can drop it early, it can essentially remove creatures as a factor. Board wipes that create tokens, like Kirtar’s Wrath, are particularly good with it, since they get rid of everything while also filling the Portcullis creature quota by themselves.
With such a lock in place, you can break the symmetry of Portcullis in a few interesting ways. Since it still lets creatures enter before exiling them, you can stack your deck with cheap, powerful enters abilities, like those on Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath or Mulldrifter. This approach works doubly well in Aristocrats, where you can sacrifice new creatures with the exile trigger on the stack.
Another way to unbalance Portcullis is with ability-cancelling cards like Torpor Orb. Drop this, and you’ll be free to play out as many creatures as you like. You can then bounce or sacrifice the Orb so Portcullis still affects your opponents. Alternatively, if Portcullis is ever removed, and your opponents’ exiled creatures return to play, you can deal with those using Containment Priest or Gather Specimens for a huge turnabout play.
Blink And You’ll Miss It
As you might expect for such an unusual MTG card, Portcullis also has a fair bit of combo potential. When paired with Ranar, the Ever-Watchful, for example, it can create an easy infinite loop. Simply play a creature with Portcullis and Ranar out, exile it to Portcullis, and Ranar will make a Spirit. You can then exile this Spirit to Portcullis, creating another Spirit, and repeat this unlimited times. You’ll need a sacrifice outlet to avoid a draw here, but infinite enters triggers can easily end a game.
A similar combo is possible with Felidar Guardian. With Portcullis out and two creatures in play, Guardian can enter, putting its ability to blink Portcullis on the stack, then you can exile it to Portcullis. Resolve both, and you’ll get Guardian back to do it again, for infinite enters triggers. In Prosper, Tome-Bound Commander decks, you can pull off a similar combo with Portcullis, Eternal Scourge, and Eye of Ugin.
If you want to get really fancy, you can loop any number of creatures using Master Transmuter and Voltaic Key. With a few creatures under Portcullis, you can use Key to stack two Transmuter triggers, bouncing and replaying Portcullis in time to catch the creatures returning. You can also bounce and replay Key this way, essentially untapping it and unlocking all kinds of infinites.
Zero Gatekeeping Policy
While Portcullis looks niche, this card actually has applications across a wide range of archetypes. In Voltron, for example, it’s an ideal way to keep the path clear for your big threat, assuming you drop it early enough to be one of the two allowed creatures. It’s also great in creature-light decks, like Superfriends or Codie, Vociferous Codex spells lists, where missing out on creatures isn’t a downside for you.
Despite all of these use cases, Portcullis is an incredibly underplayed card. According to EDHREC, just 2.63k decks run it, which represents a mere 0.03% inclusion rate. Price certainly isn’t the factor putting players off here, either. Portcullis is hugely budget-friendly at present, with near-mint copies available on TCGplayer right now for as low as $1.21. While Portcullis isn’t on the Reserved List, it’s still a single-printing card from 28 years ago, which makes its current low price quite remarkable.
While this isn’t great news for Portcullis itself, it’s excellent for players. If you want to try something a bit different in your next Commander game, Portcullis is a retro gem with, ironically, a very low financial barrier to entry.
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