For the selected coordinate, a group contains at most 3M/r real row ports and at most 3M/r real column ports. Each becomes one child edge, giving at most 6M/r=3M/32, strictly below M/8 because r=64. Old vertex degrees are unchanged. A packet vertex has at most 2L ports, and packing guarantees 2L<=Delta. Thus every child preserves the degree cap while shrinking its wire count. The total over children may exceed M because row and column ports are independent in the deformed evaluation; the recursive bound concerns EACH child separately.