I am writing a paper and I have an expression something like this:
$$\begin{equation} \notag x = \text{large_expression} + \begin{cases} y & \text{if } a<b \\ z & \text{if } a=b \\ \end{cases} \end{equation}$$
Will this notation be understood just as well as this more common, undoubtly correct way?
$$ x = \begin{cases} \text{large_expression} + y & \text{if } a<b \\ \text{large_expression} + z & \text{if } a=b \\ \end{cases}$$
Note that splitting up $\text{large_expression}$ and $y$/$z$ will hurt the understanding a lot, as well as break the flow of the paper.