Portal to Phyrexia combines a large entry-based sacrifice effect with recurring creature theft from graveyards. When it enters, each opponent sacrifices three creatures. On your upkeep, it can return a creature card from any graveyard under your control, making the creatures removed by the first ability potential resources for the second. Nine mana is expensive, but both halves can substantially change a developed battlefield.
Artifact recursion gives decks ways to deploy the Portal without paying its full cost. Goblin Welder and Goblin Engineer can support artifact-based graveyard plans in red, while white recursion can recover it through appropriate artifact-return effects. Reusing the Portal's entry ability can clear away new creatures even before the upkeep engine has produced several returns.
Opponents choose which creatures to sacrifice, so token armies may preserve their most important threats. Players with only a few creatures face a much harder choice, and sacrifice can remove indestructible or hexproof creatures that targeted destruction struggles to answer. The upkeep ability targets a creature card, giving graveyard hate a chance to remove that target before it returns.
Plan for the time between the entry trigger and your next upkeep. The Portal does not immediately reanimate a creature simply because it resolved, so protection or an additional recursion route can help preserve the investment. It fits artifact and reanimator strategies that can exploit both the initial board reduction and the continuing access to the best creatures available in graveyards.
