Pointed Discussion

Portcullis is a beast of a lockdown card.

If I played lockdown decks more, I'd definitely use this.

I play this in my thief deck. Just drop it and steal everything on the board :)

Evil evil evil.

Run it with Walking Dream.

As far as I can tell, the set symbol for Stronghold is based off this card here. Awesome flavor. Goes great with man lands like Blinkmoth Nexus and Mishra s Factory so that you can fill up the play area just before they try to resolve any creatures they cast and force them to be set aside :D And to add insult to injury, play something like Rishadan Cutpurse, even if it ends up being set aside! The come into play trigger still goes off, forcing them to pay or sacrifice, and then if somehow the Portcullis gets destroyed, the Cutpurse that got set aside comes into play again forcing another trigger to pay or sacrifice! Very cruel and is signature of the savagery that is the Rath cycle.

My portcullis deck is by far the most fun to play, I love it so much. It changes the game sooo drastically its fantastic. The zendikons from the recent blocks go very well with it, and putting a rusted relic on a prototype portal is always good fun. The deck has only 6 creatures, but using animatable artifacts and manlands I can easily work past the portcullis's restrictions.

I think someone else had posted this here previously, but Kederekt Leviathan really likes this card. It's expensive to drop both in a turn, but really screws everyone over, especially if you can drop a cheap creature and run some counterspell interference thereafter.

I've had this played against me alongside Dovescape. Feels bad, man.

As mentioned before any kind of Mind Control works well, so would Pacifisim I suspect or any kind of creature tapper. This card just obliterates weenie and token decks who rely on strength of numbers instead of the strength of their individual creatures. Great card.

If I'm reading this right, if you stack it right you can get an infinity combo with the Leonin relic-warder

Very fun as a one of in my flicker deck.
Sudden Disappearance can remove the opposition in one go.
Flickerwisp, Glimmerpoint Stag and Fiend Hunter can exile critters and even replace them if there are only two creatures in play when Portcullis's trigger resolves.
Sundial of the Infinite allows you to continue putting creatures down.
Cards with EtB effects like Inquisitor Exarch or Stonehorn Dignitary retain most of their use even if they get exiled right away, and make it difficult for the opponent to destroy the portcullis without some serious drawbacks.
If you've been filling up your portcullis with your own creatures and the opponent has been holding back, just flicker the portcullis and your board position improves drastically while still keeping your opponent in check.

Sadly, no infinite loop with Leonin Relic-Warder though,
If you resolve the warders exile ability first, then the portcullis's leaves play effect happens before the warder is removed, making it impossible to bring him back after the Portcullis's first ability resolves.
If you resolve the Portcullis's exile ability first then the warder's leaves play effect happens before the portcullis is removed, making it impossible to return the portcullis to play after it is exiled.

What happens if multiple creatures enters the battlefield at the same time?
Also, I assume that if I cast Kirtar's Wrath with Threshold while this is on the battlefield, it would prevent any other creatures from entering the battlefield until either the tokens or Portcullis leaves the battlefield? If so, that's really crazy. Just be careful that your opponent doesn't get his/her two creatures onto the battlefield before you do.

Living Plane

I'm a little surprised that this isn't banned in commander. Granted, there are a lot of ways to get rid of artifacts and it's a 4 drop, but it's the same principle as Limited Resources; limit the number of a type of permanent on the board regardless of number of players.

@GrimjawxRULES
If multiple creatures enter the battlefield at the same time, and there's no other creature on the battlefield already, Portcullis's controller chooses two of those creatures to stay on the battlefield, the others are exiled.
If there's exactly one creature already on the battlefield, one among those that entered stays on the battlefield, the others are exiled. If there's already two or more creatures, all the ones entering are exiled.

Use with Gather Specimens and an artifact destruction spell in order to get yourself a lovely creature windfall.

#forumbrowser is right, this card in EDH/Commander is nuts, especially when you steal their creatures.

I made a Riku of two Reflections EDH deck. It's still in it's playtest phase.
I did a 1v1 game, and got this out.
I then proceeded to play my creatures like normal, for my deck is build around ETB triggers.
I simply kept filling it with my creatures... And then bounced it.
All the ETB triggers went of again, making the game a chaotic battlefield.
And then I played it again.

5/5

The Tempest block had this and Cold Storage that had clumsy references to "set(ting) creatures aside," "put(ting) a creature on Cold Storage" etc. without establishing what zone they are in during this time. It was confusing. Thanks, Oracle.

I like how vague they were about the concept of temporarily removing creatures from play when they wrote the original text. "Set that creature aside." All right, so I... put it into play over here, a bit away from my other creatures, then attack with it!