What steps will reproduce the problem?
(1) git checkout origin/master
(2) gclient sync -D -R -f --with_branch_heads --nohooks
(3) ls third_party/swiftshader/third_party/pnacl-subzero/
(4) git checkout 59.0.3047.4
(5) gclient sync -D -R -f --with_branch_heads --nohooks
(6) ls third_party/swiftshader/third_party/pnacl-subzero/

What is the expected result?
Sources to be present and synced to release tag.

What happens instead?
Sources removed (or left unchanged if -f is omitted).

The problem is that recursive deps (recursedeps entires in main DEPS files) that are lists when published have their entires reversed, and gclient expect specific order to work (gclient.py:628). This is turn causes those recursive deps to not be synced in release tags checkouts, depending on call either removing that dir completely (gclient sync -D -f) of just leaving at whatever revision it was checked out previously.