Quote from Trasno »For me the minimum are 7 2 cmc drops.
Before the unbans I played 3 Retreats. It depends on the meta, if there are few interactive decks you should increase the odds of comboing. In the other hand if the matchups are grindy drawing a retreat without a Knight on the board is really painful. Now I`m testing with 2.
I will echo Trasno here and say that the slots are less about "utility creatures" and more about mana curve. 7-8 Dorks. 7-9 2-drops (Scooze, Qasali Pridemage, VoR, Selfless Spirit, occasionally JVP), then 12-14 3-drops. The 'always include' 3-drops being 4 KotR and 4 Queller, and then normally 2 Courser and 2 Tracker, and then some flex spots like eternal witness, Geist of Saint Traft, or Vendilion Clique(looking to make a comeback now). Then you have your 4 CoCo and 4 Path, and usually 0-3 Retreats. I like having 2, but many lists have 1. I have a friend who cut 4th path for a 3rd retreat, and he pushes the combo a lot. He also runs Geist though, so the retreat can come down with a fetchland and tap down a blocker or two.
In general, the land/mana dork split is usually 8 dorks/22 lands or 7 dorks/23 lands. If you're up against a lot of jund and control, I like the 7/23. If you're up against more "ignore what opponent is doing" decks, I like 8/22.
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