No special behaviour is documented for array slices. An array slice in list context returns its last element, so you're matching against that. Array slices should probably behave like array refs, but it's not documented to do so.

Of course, you can do that yourself: 

$i ~~ [ @ar[1..4] ]

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In reply to Re: bug? why does this ~~ smart match to an array slice fail? by ikegami
in thread bug? why does this ~~ smart match to an array slice fail? by flies

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