You tricked yourself.

In the first case, the list assignment is evaluated in scalar context. In the second case, the list assignment is evaluated in list context and assigned to @x, yielding an array with three elements, which is then evaluated in scalar context. And an array with three elements evaluates to 3 in scalar context.

Makeshifts last the longest.

In reply to Re^3: List assignment in scalar context by Aristotle
in thread List assignment in scalar context by Grimnebulin

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