FWIW the first two evaluations give identical results now:
$ perl6 -e 'my $s = "abcdefghtttaaccta"; my @pats = /ttta<[agt]>cct/,
/z|ttta<[agt]>cct/; for @pats -> $pat { say $s.comb( /$pat/ ); }'
(tttaacct)
(tttaacct)
$ perl6 -e 'my $s = "abcdefghtttaaccta"; my @pats = "ttta<[agt]>cct",
"z|ttta<[agt]>cct"; for @pats -> $pat { say $s.comb( /<$pat>/ ); }'
(tttaacct)
(tttaacct)
