Here're some test results. Please take into account that I'm playing this at my LGS's FNM, so I don't face top-tier decks all the time, and I only remember some things from the three matches I played:
Round 1: Mono green fight club-like
I don't remember much about this game except that it was pretty one-sided. I removed his Ulvenwald Trackers and pumped some creatures up with Gavony Township, which gave me a huge lead. I also remember landing my own Tracker and teaming it up with Vampire Nighthawk, which led to an even bigger beating.
Round 2: Mono Green beats
It was a fast and aggressive deck, packed with undying creatures, Rancor and other instant-speed creature pump. I think I lost the first game to double Rancor + dudes, but on games 2 and 3 I managed to land my lone Deathrite Shaman, which gobbled up Strangleroot Geists and other creatures while gaining me enough life to stay alive and turn the tables. I had to be the controlling deck against him, trying to remove all creatures he had as soon as possible and leaving black some blockers for his growth cards.
Round 3: B/G Zombies
Game 1 I removed his early beaters with Tragic Slips and my lone Liliana of the Veil, while I filled the board with Lingering Souls tokens. I then used Lilly to empty his hand while still keeping some cards in mine, and he didn't draw anything relevant before losing to my spirit tokens.
Game 2 I sideboarded in both Pithing Needles and the Deathrite Shaman; I set a Needle for Lotleth Troll after he landed one, and made lots of spirit tokens with Lingering Souls. He eventually played a Vampire Nighthawk, but I kept attacking with my spirits to push some damage through, and he failed to draw the pair of Golgari Charms he had sided in. I played my own Nighthawk, which held his Gravecrawlers at bay, and I ended up winning the third game in the third turn of overtime.
Overall, I noticed the deck was fairly resilent, with all cards pulling their weight. The pair of Wolfir Silverhearts I added to the deck provided a huge advantage even when all I had to pair them with was an Arbor Elf. Lingering Souls was even more back-breaking than I had initially anticipated, but Mikaeus and the Townships were as good as I had hoped. Corpsejack Menace appears to be a bad choice, though, since it doesn't impact the board as fast as the other cards, and doesn't do anything on its own unless you already have Mikaeus or a Towship online, which don't even need the Menace to be strong in the first place.
Because I couldn't get my hands on the Quirion Dryads, I ran a third Tragic Slip and that hasty 3/3 with scavenge, which were great as well.
As far as sideboarding goes, I'm not sure what I should do. I was thinking about adding at least some Knight of Glory to hate on Zombies, but I think that'd be overdoing it, since Deathrite Shaman is good enough against them. I didn't play against any controlling decks, so I can't say how the deck would fare against them.
I'd say it's better to drop the Hydra, since it's just a big dumb creature. Also, probably could run just three Corpsejack Menaces instead of a full set. Your deck isn't as mana-hungry as mine (except for Township activations), so I guess you could play it with less acceleration, or replacing Farseek for Avacyn's Pilgrim, which can be Rancored in a pinch. Freeing up three slots (Hydra, Farseek and Menace) would allow you to try out some other cards such as Stangleroot Geist (since your deck's more aggressive than mine).
My biggest complaint about Predator Ooze is how slow it is to get going. Back when I played mono-green I often found it to be not worth it, especially when compared with Dungrove Elder, which was a beast of a card. The Ooze doesn't get large fast enough to race dedicated aggro decks or be a serious problem against control (since they can bounce it for some awesome tempo advantage).
That's why I'm running the deck the way it is right now, because I want to avoid relying on a combination of specific cards, opting instead for cards that can work well on their own, with the added bonus of having some good synergy between them. Mikaeus and the Tracker are the weakest cards on their own, but they provide some good value on their own, and even they are the kind of card your opponents will want dead on arrival; since the rest of the deck is also full of cards your opponent will want to remove at all costs, it's more likely they'll run out of answers before you run out of threats.
Luckily, there's no pro-green running around standard at the time, and the Ooze can't be answered well outside of blue (bounce and counterspells) or black (mostly Multilate and Tragic Slip).
By the way, some cards I was eyeing were Ring of Kalonia and Ring of Thune, which could provide some incremental advantage while hanging around after their wearer dies, but are probably too slow. The green ring could work wonders on your Oozes, however, and the white one could buff Mikaeus while giving some other creature vigilance or simply make your spirit tokens more annoying.
I'm a bit wary about Predator Ooze's GGG, mostly due to having eleven (!) mana sources that don't add G. I could cut them down if I added some Sunpetal Groves and Woodland Cemetery, but you'd be looking at six non-green-producing lands at the very least (the three Townships, the Vault, a Plains and a Swamp), which could mess you up. It's nice how it dodges anything but Tragic Slip, but I still am not sure whether it's the right choice.
I think Avacyn's Pilgrim would take up a lot of space in the deck, and the deck already runs lots of one-toughness guys that can and will get wiped out by opposing Golgari Charms, Tragic Slips and Electrickery. That's the reason I run Farseek rather than more mana dorks.
Wolfir Silverheart could work, and I guess I'll test running two of them. They could also be Dreg Manglers if we wanted to keep the curve low.
Here're my thoughts regarding the other cards that were discussed:
Strangleroot Geist's GG isn't as hard to achieve as Predator Ooze, but it has anti-synergy with Mikaeus and Township; however, it still is a good beater on its own... I'm not sure if it has a place in this deck, but it does have its merits.
I think Slitherhead does too little to warrant its inclussion, since the deck has no discard outlets other than the single Liliana of the Veil, and it adds just one counter. If had the room to run a card that put +1/+1 counters on your creatures, I'd rather recommend that Dark Ascension instant whose morbid effect puts three +1/+1 counters on something.
By the way, I'd recommend running at least one of each basic land so you aren't completely screwed by Ghost Quarter.
I'll be trying the deck out at a small FNM tonight, so I'll let you know the results when I'm back.
Well, besides the high casting cost, she's even more of a win-more card than Corpsejack Menace. I'll only pile up counters if my creatures go unblocked and neither them nor the Regent get removed. Mikaeus, the Lunarch's good because he can be cast for cheap, and Gavony Township can't be hit by most removal and can speed up your board after some mass removal.
I'm still thinking about what I should do with the pair of Deadbridge Goliath, and am considering adding some Knight of Glory as a sideboard card against zombies and other black-based decks, but exalted doesn't help much since I tend to attack with multiple creatures at all times, and the lack of first strike makes it quite mediocre against other decks.
Skullclamp was a slightly older but even more infamous example of a last-minute change, where they changed the equip bonus from +1/+0 o +1/-1, which wasn't spotted because they didn't playtest the new version enough before sending it to print, resulting in a really degenerate, colorless card drawing engine that cost 1.
The deck aims to play efficient threats and grow them without requiring too much commitment to a single card. The card choices are as follows:
Arbor Elf: A much needed acceleration card, which works great with shocklands.
Ulvenwald Tracker: Slightly mana-intensive to use, but it's often seen as a big threat, attracting removal to itself and away from bigger threats that could come later on.
Mikaeus, the Lunarch: Grows other creatures, and can come down as a large creature if you need it.
Quirion Dryad: Grows on its own from most of the other cards in the deck.
Vampire Nighthawk: Very strong on its own, and gets even better if you can put some +1/+1 counters on it.
Corpsejack Menace: Doesn't do much on its own, but doubles +1/+1 counters on all your creatures, and can be used to play a really large Mikaeus.
Deadbridge Goliath: A big, dumb beater. I'm thinking about swapping it out for something else.
Bloodgift Demon: Brings a respectable, evasive body alongside card advantage.
Lingering Souls: Great value for its low cost, and has good synergy with Township and Mikaeus, which make the tokens a powerful threat with little investment.
Liliana of the Veil: A diversion that can work as repeatable removal against creatures or to strip down their hand against slower, more controlling decks.
Garruk Relentless: The unflipped version has a one-shot removal ability and can churn out some decently-sized creatures, while its Veil-Cursed side can lock down the ground and sacrifice tokens to tutor up other creatures.
Gavony Township: Allows the deck to sit back and grow its board without spending any more cards. Works great with Mikaeus, tokens , Nighthawk and Corpsejack.
Archangel's Vault: A singleton I'm trying out. It could be good at racing and/or forcing unfavorable trades, but I have yet to see it in action as I've never drawn it in the few test games I played.
Tormod's Crypt is a placeholder card against graveyard-based decks, which I intend to replace with a second Deathrite Shaman once I manage to get my hands on one.
Golgari Charm is mostly there as a way to foil most sweepers, since its first mode would nuke most of my non-pumped creatures and enchantment removal isn't that useful most of the time.
Actually, it can be done with 3UUU if you have a Mincrusher, Navigator (bound to the Mindcrusher) and a Palinchron on the battlefield:
1- Activate Mincrusher's blink and do not pass priority.
2- In response to 1, activate Navigator's blink.
3- Let 2 resolve, and bind Navigator to the Palinchron. 1 is still on the stack.
4- Activate Palinchron's blink and let it resolve, untapping some lands. Do not re-bind it to the Navigator when it enters the battlefield.
5- Finally, let 1 resolve, which blinks the Mindcrusher and mills your opponent for 5. Re-bind it to the Navigator, and you're back at square one with one extra mana in your pool (Palinchron untaps seven lands, three blinks cost six mana).
While it's absurdly convoluted (as it requires three creatures that cost 6 or more mana), it could be used as a cute casual combo.
I'd love to use it as a commander, since URG is my favorite color combination and it has a nice ability that can be back-breaking without being too annoying. Too bad most cascade cards aren't in-color.
As for crazy casual combos, I was thinking something along the lines of using Thrumming Stone to set up some crazy random dump-your-library-into-play shenanigans every now and then. Sadly, I don't think double cascade is that much better compared to a single trigger, unless you fill your deck with Sage Owls, Ponder and other cards that arrange your library (¿are there any expensive library arrangers that have useful stats?).
I've been looking around MOL, but have been unable to spot anyone selling or buying PRM Counterspells. Unless I'm mistaken, only 500 to 600 copies got distributed so far.
DOn't forget Meloku the Clouded Mirror. He made 2/2 tokens in the Spanish Language version. BONKERS!
Unless I'm mistaken, that error wasn't caught during the CoK prerelease, so people actually got to make 2/2 tokens!
It probably has been stated already, but spanish M11 Disentomb was so awesome it returned the creature to the battlefield rather than to your hand! Also, Jackal Familiar couldn't attack or block, period.
Also, I was really puzzled how Walking Atlas was a non-artifact colorless creature both in english and spanish. It was sad to learn it was actually an artifact, since it would've been the second pre-eldrazi colorless card (AFAIK, with the first being Ghostfire).
Then we got Ravenous Rats, which was called Ratas Voraces when it got printed in Portal 2nd age and became Ratas Rapaces afterwards. To make matters even more confusing, Razortooth Rats has always been translated as Ratas Voraces, so not only did a card change names across reprints, but another card took its name!
However, there seems to be consistent clump of cards around Snapcaster (the card I used as origin).
They are:
Laboratory Maniac, Falkenrath Marauders, Cackling Counterpart, Heartless Summoning, Charmbreaker Devils, Skirsdag High Priest.
Which suggests the possibility of an algorithm, albeit more complicated than what we've ever come across.
While I haven't opened any boxes, I'd like to let you guys know that a similar distribution happened in an eight-man draft last week. The table opened a Snapcaster, Charmbreaker Devils, Skirksdag Priest, Cackling Counterpart and Lab Maniac (didn't hear a thing about the Marauders or Summoning, though).
Most importantly, these packs were in spanish, and while it'd probably be a risky assumption due to a very small spanish pack sample, I guess spanish packs could be using the same booster pack distribution as their english counterparts.
It's a weird thing, but I think having a one-sided version to go with the double-sided transforming card's a nice way to solve most issues. Drafting might be slightly harder due to this, but I think it doesn't mean Magic as we know it is doomed.
Like an earlier user has said, I don't know how it'd work if you had the same transform card twice (as in, 2x regular back + 2x double-sided)... I guess competitive events will force you to keep the double-sided copies out of your deck and use the regular back cards only, but it could be interesting in casual, where you could set aside a single double-sided card for transformation and shuffle the other one as a third copy for your deck.
Round 1: Mono green fight club-like
I don't remember much about this game except that it was pretty one-sided. I removed his Ulvenwald Trackers and pumped some creatures up with Gavony Township, which gave me a huge lead. I also remember landing my own Tracker and teaming it up with Vampire Nighthawk, which led to an even bigger beating.
Round 2: Mono Green beats
It was a fast and aggressive deck, packed with undying creatures, Rancor and other instant-speed creature pump. I think I lost the first game to double Rancor + dudes, but on games 2 and 3 I managed to land my lone Deathrite Shaman, which gobbled up Strangleroot Geists and other creatures while gaining me enough life to stay alive and turn the tables. I had to be the controlling deck against him, trying to remove all creatures he had as soon as possible and leaving black some blockers for his growth cards.
Round 3: B/G Zombies
Game 1 I removed his early beaters with Tragic Slips and my lone Liliana of the Veil, while I filled the board with Lingering Souls tokens. I then used Lilly to empty his hand while still keeping some cards in mine, and he didn't draw anything relevant before losing to my spirit tokens.
Game 2 I sideboarded in both Pithing Needles and the Deathrite Shaman; I set a Needle for Lotleth Troll after he landed one, and made lots of spirit tokens with Lingering Souls. He eventually played a Vampire Nighthawk, but I kept attacking with my spirits to push some damage through, and he failed to draw the pair of Golgari Charms he had sided in. I played my own Nighthawk, which held his Gravecrawlers at bay, and I ended up winning the third game in the third turn of overtime.
Overall, I noticed the deck was fairly resilent, with all cards pulling their weight. The pair of Wolfir Silverhearts I added to the deck provided a huge advantage even when all I had to pair them with was an Arbor Elf. Lingering Souls was even more back-breaking than I had initially anticipated, but Mikaeus and the Townships were as good as I had hoped. Corpsejack Menace appears to be a bad choice, though, since it doesn't impact the board as fast as the other cards, and doesn't do anything on its own unless you already have Mikaeus or a Towship online, which don't even need the Menace to be strong in the first place.
Because I couldn't get my hands on the Quirion Dryads, I ran a third Tragic Slip and that hasty 3/3 with scavenge, which were great as well.
As far as sideboarding goes, I'm not sure what I should do. I was thinking about adding at least some Knight of Glory to hate on Zombies, but I think that'd be overdoing it, since Deathrite Shaman is good enough against them. I didn't play against any controlling decks, so I can't say how the deck would fare against them.
I'd say it's better to drop the Hydra, since it's just a big dumb creature. Also, probably could run just three Corpsejack Menaces instead of a full set. Your deck isn't as mana-hungry as mine (except for Township activations), so I guess you could play it with less acceleration, or replacing Farseek for Avacyn's Pilgrim, which can be Rancored in a pinch. Freeing up three slots (Hydra, Farseek and Menace) would allow you to try out some other cards such as Stangleroot Geist (since your deck's more aggressive than mine).
My biggest complaint about Predator Ooze is how slow it is to get going. Back when I played mono-green I often found it to be not worth it, especially when compared with Dungrove Elder, which was a beast of a card. The Ooze doesn't get large fast enough to race dedicated aggro decks or be a serious problem against control (since they can bounce it for some awesome tempo advantage).
That's why I'm running the deck the way it is right now, because I want to avoid relying on a combination of specific cards, opting instead for cards that can work well on their own, with the added bonus of having some good synergy between them. Mikaeus and the Tracker are the weakest cards on their own, but they provide some good value on their own, and even they are the kind of card your opponents will want dead on arrival; since the rest of the deck is also full of cards your opponent will want to remove at all costs, it's more likely they'll run out of answers before you run out of threats.
Luckily, there's no pro-green running around standard at the time, and the Ooze can't be answered well outside of blue (bounce and counterspells) or black (mostly Multilate and Tragic Slip).
By the way, some cards I was eyeing were Ring of Kalonia and Ring of Thune, which could provide some incremental advantage while hanging around after their wearer dies, but are probably too slow. The green ring could work wonders on your Oozes, however, and the white one could buff Mikaeus while giving some other creature vigilance or simply make your spirit tokens more annoying.
I think Avacyn's Pilgrim would take up a lot of space in the deck, and the deck already runs lots of one-toughness guys that can and will get wiped out by opposing Golgari Charms, Tragic Slips and Electrickery. That's the reason I run Farseek rather than more mana dorks.
Wolfir Silverheart could work, and I guess I'll test running two of them. They could also be Dreg Manglers if we wanted to keep the curve low.
Here're my thoughts regarding the other cards that were discussed:
Strangleroot Geist's GG isn't as hard to achieve as Predator Ooze, but it has anti-synergy with Mikaeus and Township; however, it still is a good beater on its own... I'm not sure if it has a place in this deck, but it does have its merits.
I think Slitherhead does too little to warrant its inclussion, since the deck has no discard outlets other than the single Liliana of the Veil, and it adds just one counter. If had the room to run a card that put +1/+1 counters on your creatures, I'd rather recommend that Dark Ascension instant whose morbid effect puts three +1/+1 counters on something.
By the way, I'd recommend running at least one of each basic land so you aren't completely screwed by Ghost Quarter.
I'll be trying the deck out at a small FNM tonight, so I'll let you know the results when I'm back.
I'm still thinking about what I should do with the pair of Deadbridge Goliath, and am considering adding some Knight of Glory as a sideboard card against zombies and other black-based decks, but exalted doesn't help much since I tend to attack with multiple creatures at all times, and the lack of first strike makes it quite mediocre against other decks.
It's odd how some last-minute changes led to some pretty broken equipments (Skullclamp, Umezawa's Jitte and Batterskull).
4 Arbor Elf
2 Ulvenwald Tracker
2 Mikaeus, the Lunarch
4 Quirion Dryad
4 Vampire Nighthawk
2 Corpsejack Menace
2 Deadbridge Goliath
2 Bloodgift Demon
Spells (15)
2 Tragic Slip
4 Farseek
2 Ultimate Price
4 Lingering Souls
1 Liliana of the Veil
2 Garruk Relentless
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Temple Garden
2 Isolated Chapel
3 Gavony Township
1 Archangel's Vault
4 Forest
4 Swamp
1 Plains
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Pithing Needle
3 Duress
1 Deathrite Shaman
3 Golgari Charm
5 Other cards
Ulvenwald Tracker: Slightly mana-intensive to use, but it's often seen as a big threat, attracting removal to itself and away from bigger threats that could come later on.
Mikaeus, the Lunarch: Grows other creatures, and can come down as a large creature if you need it.
Quirion Dryad: Grows on its own from most of the other cards in the deck.
Vampire Nighthawk: Very strong on its own, and gets even better if you can put some +1/+1 counters on it.
Corpsejack Menace: Doesn't do much on its own, but doubles +1/+1 counters on all your creatures, and can be used to play a really large Mikaeus.
Deadbridge Goliath: A big, dumb beater. I'm thinking about swapping it out for something else.
Bloodgift Demon: Brings a respectable, evasive body alongside card advantage.
Farseek: Great acceleration that isn't a creature, so it can't be killed to set me back mana-wise.
Ultimate Price: Some removal I'm trying out.
Lingering Souls: Great value for its low cost, and has good synergy with Township and Mikaeus, which make the tokens a powerful threat with little investment.
Liliana of the Veil: A diversion that can work as repeatable removal against creatures or to strip down their hand against slower, more controlling decks.
Garruk Relentless: The unflipped version has a one-shot removal ability and can churn out some decently-sized creatures, while its Veil-Cursed side can lock down the ground and sacrifice tokens to tutor up other creatures.
Gavony Township: Allows the deck to sit back and grow its board without spending any more cards. Works great with Mikaeus, tokens , Nighthawk and Corpsejack.
Archangel's Vault: A singleton I'm trying out. It could be good at racing and/or forcing unfavorable trades, but I have yet to see it in action as I've never drawn it in the few test games I played.
Pithing Needle could be good against planeswalkers and some other stuff like Lolteth Troll.
Duress is a must-have against more controlling decks.
Deathrite Shaman could be good against graveyard-based decks and dodges a non-morbid Tragic Slip.
Golgari Charm is mostly there as a way to foil most sweepers, since its first mode would nuke most of my non-pumped creatures and enchantment removal isn't that useful most of the time.
1- Activate Mincrusher's blink and do not pass priority.
2- In response to 1, activate Navigator's blink.
3- Let 2 resolve, and bind Navigator to the Palinchron. 1 is still on the stack.
4- Activate Palinchron's blink and let it resolve, untapping some lands. Do not re-bind it to the Navigator when it enters the battlefield.
5- Finally, let 1 resolve, which blinks the Mindcrusher and mills your opponent for 5. Re-bind it to the Navigator, and you're back at square one with one extra mana in your pool (Palinchron untaps seven lands, three blinks cost six mana).
While it's absurdly convoluted (as it requires three creatures that cost 6 or more mana), it could be used as a cute casual combo.
As for crazy casual combos, I was thinking something along the lines of using Thrumming Stone to set up some crazy random dump-your-library-into-play shenanigans every now and then. Sadly, I don't think double cascade is that much better compared to a single trigger, unless you fill your deck with Sage Owls, Ponder and other cards that arrange your library (¿are there any expensive library arrangers that have useful stats?).
Does anyone know how much they cost?
Unless I'm mistaken, that error wasn't caught during the CoK prerelease, so people actually got to make 2/2 tokens!
It probably has been stated already, but spanish M11 Disentomb was so awesome it returned the creature to the battlefield rather than to your hand! Also, Jackal Familiar couldn't attack or block, period.
Also, I was really puzzled how Walking Atlas was a non-artifact colorless creature both in english and spanish. It was sad to learn it was actually an artifact, since it would've been the second pre-eldrazi colorless card (AFAIK, with the first being Ghostfire).
The first one I noticed was Plow Under, which was translated to Arado Profundo in Urza's Destiny and Enterrar in Eight edition.
Then we got Ravenous Rats, which was called Ratas Voraces when it got printed in Portal 2nd age and became Ratas Rapaces afterwards. To make matters even more confusing, Razortooth Rats has always been translated as Ratas Voraces, so not only did a card change names across reprints, but another card took its name!
While they're probably scrambled, I guess it could help if I posted the rares I managed to see during the drafting and matches:
Liliana of the Veil
Snapcaster Mage
Charmbreaker Devils
Skirksdag High Priest
Cackling Counterpart
Laboratory Maniac
2x Mindshrieker
Skaab Ruinator
Kessig Cagebreakers
W/B dual
Hinterland Harbor
Witchbane Orb
The equipment that grants +X/+0 equal to the number of instants and sorceries in your GY
2x Splinterfright
UW spirit-making land (was it Moorland Haunt?)
That's 17/24 rares (I didn't get to see the remaining seven).
Rare/mythic DFCs I saw were:
Instigator Gang (on same pack as W/B dual)
Garruk Relentless (on same pack as Snapcaster Mage)
2x first strike/double strike werewolf
While I haven't opened any boxes, I'd like to let you guys know that a similar distribution happened in an eight-man draft last week. The table opened a Snapcaster, Charmbreaker Devils, Skirksdag Priest, Cackling Counterpart and Lab Maniac (didn't hear a thing about the Marauders or Summoning, though).
Most importantly, these packs were in spanish, and while it'd probably be a risky assumption due to a very small spanish pack sample, I guess spanish packs could be using the same booster pack distribution as their english counterparts.
Hope this helps.
Like an earlier user has said, I don't know how it'd work if you had the same transform card twice (as in, 2x regular back + 2x double-sided)... I guess competitive events will force you to keep the double-sided copies out of your deck and use the regular back cards only, but it could be interesting in casual, where you could set aside a single double-sided card for transformation and shuffle the other one as a third copy for your deck.