Being as impartial as possible: I'd really like to see the exact and logical reasoning how this tiebreaker was decided.
Almost half of the people who are somehow interested in the outcome of Trials wanted to see dd as the next Water Master, and because of their Phase II match (which in fact seemed like a pretty close one) he gets eliminated automatically? Somehow this feels very wrong and unfair to me.
But if this is the case, and it's final: I suggest removing Phase I and Phase III altogether next time, as they have no real practical point in Trials (and in Mastership as well) and the whole process shouldn't be anything else just a 'classy PvP tournament'. It's all about the PvP anyway, right?