Cactus Game Design Message Boards

I attack with Jair, my opponent blocks, I play Sword Against Sword to create a side battle.  I select my Abimelech (holding Foreign Sword) and one of my opponent's ECs as the two characters for the side battle.  I select Abimelech to enter battle first.  I use Foreign Sword to negate/topdeck my opponent's EC that I selected for the side battle.  Questions:

1. Does my opponent get SI to negate Foreign Sword in the side battle?  Or did his EC get topdecked before he was actually in the side battle?

2. If I win the side battle with Abimelech and I choose to discard the EC blocking Jair via Abimelech's "If you win this battle" clause, does the blocking EC get SI to negate Abimelech?

Abimelech - If Gideon is in your discard pile, negate and discard an Artifact or single color Site. If you win this battle, you may discard an evil card.

Foreign Sword - Negate an opponent’s evil or neutral card. If used by a Canaanite or Philistine, you may return that card to the top of owner’s deck.

As a point of clarification--they enter simultaneously for the side battle and you can choose whose abilities activates first based on the order you physically put them in the side battle. (Similar to how Battle Cry bands in all targeted Heroes at once and you choose the order of the abilities resolving).

So in practical steps it would be:
1. Play side battle card
2. Choose two evil characters
3. Add EC 1 to battle
4. Add EC 2 to battle
5. Resolve EC 1's abilities
6. Resolve EC 2's abilities

If there are no special initiative situations and the side battle is in a mutual destruction or stalemate, it would be the player controlling EC 1 who would get initiative.

Would this be different if I used Foreign Sword to negate/topdeck the EC blocking Jair?  If I remove the blocking EC during the side battle instead of after it (since Abimelech's second ability can only happen after the side battle is resolved), does that change whether my opponent gets SI for his character blocking Jair?

Since SI only applies to the current battle the opponent would not get SI for the character blocking Jair.