Oath trigger questions

[LotusHead]

Oath of Ghouls
Oracle text: At the beginning of each player's upkeep, that player chooses target player whose graveyard has fewer creature cards in it than his or her graveyard does and is his or her opponent. The first player may return a creature card from his or her graveyard to his or her hand.

Oath of Druids
Oracle text: At the beginning of each player's upkeep, that player chooses target player who controls more creatures than he or she does and is his or her opponent. The first player may reveal cards from the top of his or her library until he or she reveals a creature card. If he or she does, that player puts that card onto the battlefield and all other cards revealed this way into his or her graveyard.

I got beaten an MWS casual game by an Oath of Ghouls, Aether Vial, Greater Gargadon, Chittering Rats, Mesmeric Fiend deck, and apparently the Oath of Ghouls trigger worked different than the Oath of Druids trigger.

In all my experience with or against Oath of Druids, the trigger had to be ready at the beginning of the turn for it's ability to even go on the stack, and then still had to have conditions met when it would resolve.  Now, it doesn't seem the case.  (I got Oracle text from SCG.com )

So, at the beginning of my opponent's upkeep, we both have 1 creature in the graveyard.  Is it possible for my opponent to get a creature into his/her graveyard to get his/her Oath to trigger? (I had Mesmeric Orb in play and Milling was involved).

Related question, I have Oath of Druids in play at the beginning of my turn, and neither player has creatures, but I have Tropical Island in play and Crop Rotation in hand.  Can I cast Crop Rotation for Forbidden Orchard, and give opponent a Spirit token before the Oath of Druids trigger resolves?

Bonus: I know the wording of Oath in Oracle now targets (something that has been true for 6+ months), but is Oath of Druids fundamentally functionally changed from it's heyday during the Gush Era?

Thanks in advance.

[Yare]

The long and the short of it is that the relevant condition has to be true both when the ability triggers at the beginning of the player's upkeep (technically it's when it's placed on the stack after triggering, but I can't conceive of a situation where this would matter) and upon resolution. The reason for this is that whenever a triggered ability that targets is put on the stack, just like a spell, it needs a legal target. In the case of Oath of Ghouls, it requires a target player that is one's opponent and whose graveyard has fewer creature cards in it than the first player. If there is no legal target when the ability is going to be placed on the stack, the ability is not put on the stack, goes away and does nothing. The presence of this condition is checked again upon resolution to make sure the target is legal. This is also exactly the same for Oath of Druids, only you're looking for creatures in play instead. So, to answer the question, no, you can't use Crop Rotation or anything like that to modify the number of creatures in play or in the graveyard with the Oaths in order to try to get them to trigger and be placed on the stack because they need to have legal targets when placed on the stack and there is no opportunity between the beginning of the upkeep and putting the trigger on the stack to change that.

Regarding changing the functionality of these cards, they used to have "intervening if" clauses, which are technically different, but functionally don't really change anything. With the intervening if clauses, they wouldn't trigger at all if the condition wasn't true, whereas now, the ability will trigger every upkeep, it just won't go on the stack if there isn't a legal target. Besides that, at some point in the Oaths' errata history, "target" was removed. But, as you pointed out, it was put back at some point.