This doesn't answer the question (but it might) - looking at the code, $_ is used clear down through the code and even across some sub routine calls. That takes a lot of faith that nobody else is manipulating $_. Even if it doesn't fix the problem I would suggest using a named value rather than $_. Example:
Instead of:

foreach (@misses)
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Use:

foreach my $miss (@misses)
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my @a=qw(random brilliant braindead); print $a[rand(@a)];