As the Camel says, you should use /Gandalf/ || /Saruman/ || /Radagast/ over /Gandalf|Saruman|Radagast/ for efficiency.

my @phrases = map { qr/$_/ } # precompile regexes, may not be what you
+ want though
              (
                'phrase one',
                'phrase two',
                'a different phrase',
                'yet another match',
                'one more to match',
                'single',
                'word',
                'matches',
              );

PHRASE:
foreach my $phrase (@phrases)
{
  last PHRASE if $incoming{'text'} =~ /($phrase)/;
}

if (defined $1)
{
  # Matched phrase in $1.
}
else
{
  # No match.
}
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