Seed Aggregation for Competing First-Passage Percolation

We give an exact reduction from competing first-passage percolation with initially infected hubs to the same process with many seeds on a regular configuration model. Merging vertices already occupied by the same type preserves the entire infection process outside those vertices. Combining this observation with the regular-graph theorem of Antunovic, Dekel, Mossel and Peres yields a sharp seed-count criterion within an almost regular family. If the slow-to-fast rate ratio is r in (0,1) and there are q_N=o(N) slow hubs, a construction with convergent finite second degree moment in which the slow type captures asymptotically all vertices exists exactly when q_N/N^(1-2r) tends to infinity. One diverging-degree hub suffices precisely when r>1/2; at r=1/2, arbitrarily slowly diverging hub counts suffice. The high-probability conclusions also hold for the corresponding uniform simple graphs. The growth estimates are imported from prior work. The result concerns deterministic degree sequences with planted hubs and does not settle the question for a prescribed fixed iid degree law. This is an unrefereed, AI-assisted preprint without an absolute priority claim.