In reply to ben@SystemVerilog.us:
Hi Ben,
*!b[0:$] would be equivalent to **!b[*0] or !b[*1] or !b[*2] or !b[3] or … or !b[N]
**As !b[0] is an empty sequence , it would never match right ?
So the assertion would pass at the earliest due to !b[1] and the implicit first_match for the consequent