illumfolly: There are a few reasons behind not running the combo. There's a few different trains of thought about different aspects of the "why" so I'll try to keep it condensed, but this might go a bit long.

So basically, I try to minimise the number of "situationally" good cards. Don't get me wrong, they're both good cards, however they primarily function in combo. Outside of that, while Pattern of Rebirth is ok, Boonweaver Giant doesn't bring a huge amount to the party. And when it comes to combo cards for the deck, I have been quite ruthless in making sure I don't include a bunch of cards which don't offer support outside of combo. Out of all the current combo pieces, the one which provides the least out-of-combo usefulness is actually Reveillark, however this card provides enough utility and also works with far too many cards inside of combo.

Now the other thing to mention is regarding the sac outlets themselves. Of all the sac outlets in the deck, short of some very convoluted interactions, there are only 4 cards that I can infinite combo with. These are Blasting Station, Altar of Dementia, Ashnod's Altar and Phyrexian Altar. I deliberately don't run cards like Fanatical Devotion or Martyr's Cause as they don't provide a win condition and they don't provide setup into one either. At least the mana altars do just that, the give me mana to shift into the next combo.

So when you look at the combo in totality, this means that I need two sac recursion creatures and an outlet. Of the outlets available, 2 of them (assuming I'm not coming up against eldrazi) are win conditions in their own right, meaning that there's no need to have access to my entire deck. For the other two, that's the risk I take that I can't shift into a game winning combo from the. However I run a decent chunk of card advantage pieces (more than a lot selesnya decks), most of which can assist in making that transition.

On top of that, Most of the combos in the deck also work with my commander. Typically (not always but enough of the time) I have access to her, meaning that while Boonweaver can set up the combo by himself (a fact that I do really like about it), This isn't fully necessary.

The other thing is that while I have a decent amount of creature tutors, Boonweaver is also more expensive to play than any other creature that interacts with Saffi. And as for Pattern, I have all of one card that can tutor for it and most of the time Enlightened Tutor will be looking for the sac outlet.

Don't get me wrong, The Boonweaver combo is very cool and I really do like it. And if/when there is ever released a green/white creature that has a free sac effect, I will very strongly reconsider it for the deck. However as it stands, I don't feel like it's strong enough to include in the deck as I don't think it adds enough value outside of combo.

Cool thanks!

I would also think that Eldritch Evolution would have been an auto-include?

Yeah, it most likely will be. I've got one lined up to trade for but I haven't gotten around to sorting it out yet.

Honestly, it's just trying to figure out what to cut for it that's the hard part. Initial thoughts?

Mortarpod and one land.

From experience playing shirei, mortarpod is good but underperforms. Maybe because black has better outlets?

35 lands is a-okay -- just need filtering and fetches!

Drop two cards for Eldritch Evolution? must be a big card :P

I'm not a big fan of reducing my land count. I recently went from 37 to 36 and that stressed me out enough. While I'm sure it wouldn't be too much of an issue, I don't like the idea of swapping out lands for non lands, especially non-ramp nonlands.

Mortarpod was added alongside Stoneforge Mystic in one of the more recent updates. While it's not the strongest card, I kind of like it in that it can be tutored up with a creature tutor (via stoneforge) and provides a win condition with infinite mana, effectively providing me with a backup Blasting Station. I think I need to test it a bit more before writing it off. But yeah, black is much better suited in forms of sac outlets. What I wouldn't give for a green/white Viscera Seer.

The other card I was thinking of possibly cutting was Oblation. While I hate cutting removal, I sometimes can get frustrated by it in that it's not only expesnive but also gives so much benefit to my opponent. That being said, it also gets rid of just about anything, so I can understand the drawback of the card.

Maybe sub Oblation for Council's Judgment. That gets rid of anything.

Fun deck! I am stealing some of your white cards for use in my mono white soldier deck. Not sure WHY I haven't been running my Karmic guide in it.... other than me being an idiot. I'm running Darien, King of Kjeldor as my commander, so I think I will be including blasting station and that gift of immortality as well.

Oh yeah and the Jester's cap cuz the flavor is sooooo goood.

Go for it. And yeah, Blasting Station is solid. It triggers individually off each soldier that Darien drops so you can return each point of damage dealt to you directly back to the attacker. Or combine it with Healer of the Pride for infinite life (if you keep pinging yourself). Plus I'm assuming you're already running Cathars' Crusade.

Oh and yeah, king, jester, I like it. Good card too.

What are your thoughts on Altar of the Brood ? With the endless recursion combos it would be an alt win condition from a 1 drop.

Altar of the Brood is ok, however the issue with it is that it doesn't provide a sac outlet. This means that it needs to be paired with one of the existing loops and at that point it's just win more. And outside of combo, I want to try to avoid painting a target on my head (plus against a graveyard deck, milling them generally just helps my opponent).

I think your missing the point of Greater Good. It has way more potential than you gave it credit for from the earlier posts I was reading. First it is a draw engine with a bigger creature. Second when you don't have the bigger creature it is a dig engine that allows you to fill your graveyard with combo pieces. I know it seems daunting at first with the thought of having to basically mill yourself but if you have either Karmic Guide or Reveillark it is a infinite sac combo with Saffi to fill the graveyard and then pull all your creatures out of the graveyard regardless of CMC. This kind of combo works a lot better with other creatures that act as sac outlets because once you get the creature you don't have to risk drawing your entire deck. Although you don't have to worry about that risk if you run a way to beat your opponent before your next turn with Scuttling Doom Engine. This is my go to for sac combo wins outside of combat. I run sac as my favorite mechanic in the game and I have made several sac combo decks including Saffi and she has been a key card for every deck I have ran that runs her colors. My strongest right now being a Karador, Ghost Chieftain deck.

Great deck +1, It hasn't been updated in a long time but there might be some good cards still. self righteous suicide was my saffi deck and hope it helps.

Add in Renegade Rallier.

SwiftDeath: First off, thank you for the comment and for the +1. Now onto the comment about Greater Good. My biggest issue with Greater Good is its fit in THIS deck. The card is super powerful, especially in something like Karador, Ghost Chieftain. However the thing is that while Saffi my be called a reanimator deck, she is not actually a true one. Most reanimator decks are happy to discard big creatures only to bring them back cheaply, however in this deck my reanimation effects are actually some of the most expensive cards in the deck mana wise. The other thing is that while you're potentially generating card advantage, the bulk of creatures that I run create a net loss of CA as you more often than not are drawing 2, discarding 3. While this isn't the end of the world if you're discarding not useful cards to draw more useful ones, it's not ideal.

Now, all that being said, I have actually decided to do some play testing with Greater Good in place of Tooth and Nail. While TaN is super powerful, too many times I have found it just too expensive to cast alongside anything else within the space of a turn. Plus with the release of Renegade Rallier who is a solid combo card and who doesn't net lose you cards within the recursion loop, it has the potential to seem solid.

I'm sure long term it will find its home within the deck though. Because I think that it should work with enough cards (given the current build of the deck).

As for Scuttling Doom Engine however, I think that the card is a bit too narrow in what it does. While it's a nice combo piece once set up, it feels like you have to put in a lot of effort to get there. I used to run Inquisitor Exarch which was eventually cut as it was found to be sub-par.

viperfang4: I will definitely be adding Renegade Rallier to the deck once I have gotten my hands on one. There are a few small changes I am testing out to the deck (including Greater Good) so I will update the list in the next little while.

Rishkar's Expertise will probably be good as well, it is basically greater good, you draw cards, and you can play something like revillark for free off the draw from it.

viperfang4: Sorry I missed your post earlier. Rishkar's Expertise is good, but generally it will only draw me two or three cards. For 6 mana, that's a high cost and while it can cast a free spell, I'd still much rather just play Harmonize as it's cheaper. The other thing is that at six mana, Soul of the Harvest works inside of combo whereas expertise doesn't.

Hey, first let me say I've really enjoyed your decklist and all the discussion here. I've played a similar Saffi list for a long time so I'm very familiar with how a lot of the popular Saffi cards play.

On the topic of Greater Good--personally, I've found it to be an invaluable sac engine option in the deck. One of the biggest problems for most Saffi lists is always that the deck has only a few ways to find its sac outlets to set up the combo. The deck is chock-full of creature tutors, but it's a lot harder to find an artifact without just drawing into it. That's why we have to run 4-5 sac outlets in the first place. That's where Greater Good, and more specifically Academy Rector become key tools for the deck. Rector becomes a way to basically extend all of your creature tutors to enchantments, making a very strong case for adding a small suite of utility enchantments to the deck as well in case you need a fast answer instead (e.g. Parallax Wave, Oblivion Ring), not to mention Pattern of Rebirth.

Aside from that though, Greater Good proved to me that it is one of the best sac outlets available. When you don't have a 2-creature combo in play, GG will often let you loot into your combo pieces, which is generally more helpful than pinging for 1 damage or milling people. And 99% of the time when you do get a combo going with it, you will be able to win on the spot. With almost all of the combos in the deck, it lets you draw, dump cards into the graveyard, and find your actual game-winning sac outlet like Blasting Station or Altar of Dementia. That is often more that I could ever say for one of the infinite mana sac outlets, which aren't always a guaranteed win that turn. If I were making some cuts to fit at least Rector and GG, I'd say try taking out Ashnod's Altar and Deathmantle. Those two were ones I always felt lacking in the deck.

The new card, Renegade Rallier, seems super-powerful in the deck, and even worth reconsidering some creature tutors with its inclusion. I think Natural Order becomes a strong contender to earn a slot now because you can now find the rallier and combo off with it. Also, Woodland Bellower is another that can pull rallier directly into play (even Natural Order-->Woodland Bellower-->Rallier if you want ;)). Also, I noticed you don't list Recruiter of the Guard, which is an excellent creature tutor for this deck as well.

capitang: first off, thank you for the kind words and the +1. I was going to reply earlier but gave up because I was trying to do it on my phone and it's not very good at long responses.

As for your card specifics - I am actually testing Greater Good in the deck at the moment. I have also immediately found space for Renegade Rallier who was the tipping point for me to test out GG. For a long time I didn't like the card in the deck but with inclusion like Gaea's Cradle, it makes using it to set up combos much more viable. and RR being 3 power is a huge deal as far as functionality with the card goes.

I'm still on the fence about Academy Rector though. Something about it doesn't mesh with me. I know it's good and all but I'm just not sure. That being said I did have the same vibe with GG. It's a tricky one though. I'll give it some more thought.

Leading off that though, I'm not too interested in filling up the deck with lots of enchantments. I traditionally play control and as such the deck has been built to suit my style, so I prefer having instant speed removal in hand. And I think that if I added rector I wouldn't want to waste it on something not GG.

I also don't like Pattern of Rebirth as much as I think a lot of other Saffi players do. While it's cute with Boonweaver, I don't think that combo is good in Saffi decks as the limiting factor is almost always the sac outlet, not the recursion loop. And at that point I would rather have something like Worldly Tutor. It's also the reason that I don't run Recruiter of the Guard or Natural Order. And I think that Woodland Bellower, while cool, is too expensive to run. I would prefer the flexibility of Worldly Tutor before I ran almost any other creature tutor (that's not already in the deck). My biggest concern for the deck is speed so I'm happy to make the trade-off of losing my draw for only 1 mana.

I think the biggest thing that governs a lot of choices for the deck is that I've built it to be the most blue deck that a non-blue deck can be (short of running things like Mana Tithe). So while there are some really good tutors I've missed out on, I've really tried to make up for it with raw card advantage. That's why I run things like Selvala, Explorer Returned and Mikokoro, Center of the Sea and even cards like Eidolon of Blossoms. I hope that gives a bit more insight.

I think if you try out Academy Rector, you'll like it. It's great as a combo-enabler with GG obviously, but I've frequently used it to find control pieces as well when I'm behind on board. If you have a sac outlet already, it's an instant-speed answer too.

Parallax Wave was another card where I didn't see its power until I tried it out. It's SOOO flexible and way better than Rout IMO. You can run it out there and use the exile triggers as you like, so it can just sit and play defense for a few turns while you put together your combo, or you can use it as a one-sided permanent wrath in combination with a card like Nature's Claim (stacking the triggers properly). One of it's best uses is using the first exile to remove your Eternal Witness, so you can just keep playing the wave over and over.

By the way, is there a reason to run Eidolon of Blossoms over Wall of Blossoms with such a low enchantment count? Reveillark combos with either one, and Sun Titan can return the wall but not eidolon.

I've always wanted an Academy Rector so I will keep an eye out for one.

As for Rout, the plan is to replace it with Wrath of God. It's cheaper to cast and while there are some cute loops you can do with Parallax Wave, WoG deals with decks that go wide. I don't really have any other way of doing that at the moment.

Eidolon of Blossoms is an interesting one. While the enchantment count is low, getting value from playing an enchantment is still good, however the main reason I run it is because you can set up a draw engine with Gift of Immortality. Play gift on Saffi (or any self sac creature) and you will see a lot of cards quickly. While Sun Titan can bring back wall, the gift engine is just obscene.

So you said you were interested in removal. I don't specifically see any glaring omissions but I'll offer up. Song of the Dryads which can staple down a problematic commander.

I've looked at Song of the Dryads on and off in the past. It's a fairly solid removal card in green.

At the moment, I'm considering swapping out Archon of Justice. While Archon is awesome, at 5 mana I'm really starting to notice the cost.

The other cards I've been considering are Angelic Purge, Mercy Killing and even Oust. That being said, I would much prefer having removal on a body.

There's Mogara of Corondor but he only does it once. Maybe you can manipulate the stack somehow?

Mangara of Corondor's ability exiles itself as part of the resolution, not the cost. So you can sac it in response to the ability resolving.

My biggest issue with Mangara has been that he doesn't do anything the turn he comes down. I used to run him but cut him for that very reason. Too much setup involved.

Ah yeah that makes sense. It's hard in GW to find such an effect. That's more the Orzhov wheelhouse.