Smoker works in the same timing window as Illusions being destroyed, by fiat.
In fact, I think if you make Smoker an Illusion (with Dreamscape) and then target it, the active player decides if it is destroyed or returns to hand?
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Spells don’t have arrive abilities though. But you’re right - if the “put two birds into play” effect of Bird’s Nest wasn’t a “only when you cast it” thing, then you wouldn’t even need the “put more birds into play during your upkeep” ability. Thanks Eric!
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But it wouldn’t have to be fiat if triggers interrupted stuff… 
Heh, when I coded my Bashing vs. Finesse game, I treated the spell resolution the same as an Arrives ability.
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Sounds good, so then base damage from tech building destruction could work similarly.
I’d still like to know what situation this current exception based system prevents compared to a “first triggers interrupt” mode.
It is a little troubling that in the game rules “When X, Y” frequently means to do Y right away, but in the card text “When X, Y” almost always means to put the action of doing Y at the end of the queue of things to do.
The ability on Smoker and the game rule about Illusions have to happen during the resolution of spells and abilities to work. Also, abilities like the one on Graveyard that instructs you to move things out of your discard pile have to somehow always happen before abilities that instruct you to draw a card.
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Shadow Blade does not have a triggered ability. When you use Shadow Blade to kill a patroller, your opponent discards a card during the resolution of Shadow Blade.
The rest of this post is good, but I found the beginning confusing.
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Sentry can prevent up to 1 damage per turn.
Assimilating Bird’s Nest does not give you birds. If you have a Strength hero, you’ll get birds later though.
Limit: 5 per Hive on Stingers refers to units you control represented by Stinger tokens and units you control that are Hives in the derived state (even if they are something else copying a Hive). So if you have 0 units represented by Stinger tokens and you steal a Hive (Assimilate won’t let you do this but maybe you used Kidnapping or something) then you can make 5 Stingers.
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Sentry does not prevent damage redirected by Overpower
I don’t know, I haven’t really thought about that one.
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Why not? What’s different in the wording of Overpower compared to Sparkshot?
Overpower doesnt deal the damage, it just redirects existing combat damage, I think?
Sparkshot actually creates damage.
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Completely random question unrelated to anything I’ve actually seen in a game, but it just popped into my head and I’m intrigued:
Suppose my opponent has a max-level Rook, with a crumbling rune, and I cast Nether Drain to take him down 2 levels. Does he die? I would guess that he would, since he no longer has two lives, but I don’t think it’s 100% clear-cut from the rules as I know them - because according to the strict text on the card, the crumbling rune has no meaning if he’s not at max level. You could argue that he’s just an ordinary Rook with whatever level of damage he has, and a strange rune which has no meaning.
I guess a similar situation could also arise if you played Polymorph Squirrel on an opponent’s Justice Juggernaut which has a crumbling rune but no further damage. Sure, it would probably be easy to kill off in any case after that, but it would make a big difference if it dies straight there and then.
So basically what I’m asking is: if something with 2 lives has a crumbling rune and something makes it no longer have 2 lives, does it die straight away or not? (Runs off to get some popcorn while the rules lawyers on here debate it 
)
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I don’t think there’s too much to debate. Things only die if either an effect destroys them or if they have damage equal to or greater than their hp. As you’ve pointed out, once Two Lives triggers, it removes all damage. So if that unit or hero loses two lives after that point, all the damage remains removed, and so there is no reason why they would die.
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If you Nether Drain Rook, he becomes a Lvl 6 Rook with a Crumbling rune on him and has however many damage counters he had before. The crumbling rune has no meaning if Rook doesn’t have an ability that refers to it. So Rook would only die if his damage exceeded his new HP.
If Rook then gets maxed again, he regains the 2 lives ability, but he still has the crumbling rune. So when his damage exceeds his HP, 2 lives won’t save him and he will “really die”.
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So indestructible units don’t “die” so you don’t get resource patrol bonuses(scav,tech). Does this also mean that Shadowblade on a Mox wouldn’t make the owner of the Mox discard a card? Or Zanes midband, Gunpoint taxman, captured bugblatter and Bloodburn wouldn’t be affected/have effect against indestructible units?
I feel like I’m taking this whole “doesn’t actually die” thing too far but it kinda makes sense like this?
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yes, u do not get all the above.
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That’s exactly correct. It doesn’t die.
If player A has Tiny Basilisk as their only patrolling unit and player B has only Tech 0 units, can those units attack past Tiny Basilisk?