This a quick and wildly inaccurate top twelve based on late night benders.
#1/5/15 Judicial Branch / Exit Strategy / New Beginnings
JB and ES are formidable alliances teamed up for WW. SWIM
New Beginnings was a breakoff of Ghost Warriors that bragged about being a JB academy. NB is now one player desperately waiting to get into ES and some guy in VM. DROWNED LEMMING
#2/3 Department of Relocation / Your name Here 500 gold
DOR and a name changing alliance also prepping for WW. I won't say too much here, so SWIM
#4/8/? Obsidian / Onyx / Agate
Quietly expanding, they have been swallowing up smaller alliances. Seen the Killer Bees, Naxos, ect. in a while? Blame these guys. SWIM
'Pellas Tree House' became 'Agate' after PellaMike 2.0 ghosted and then joined #10 (goodbusch) and everybody else became Ghost Warriors. Then (of course) Ghost warriors split apart like a faulty wheel spinning too fast. Agate was absorbed because it had no purpose. CHUM?
#6 Red Berets
Borg like Team on the northern edge. One of the few alliances that has not broken up and relentless at taking islands. They will need to go head to head with JB to have enough islands for WW. FLOAT
#7/9/20 Undecided/Indecisive/Inconceivable
Three teams, some stitched together from failed alliances, others getting by in obscurity. I haven't made a conclusion here, but MRA life rafts don't need choices. CAN"T COMMIT TO DROWNING
#10 NothinLikeAGoodBusch
Looks like fun, cool guys. Just my opinion. FLOAT
#11 Legion of D3th
Having a large number of players under 5k at this point says "MRA that needs numbers to cook the books" SINK
#12 Ghost Warriors
A formerly active team that has a list of good players in VM. They have so many cities and points locked in VM that they can stay in the top twelve without being active at all. If you can't beat this hibernating beast, ghost already. DROWNED YET SWIMMING!
Anything below the Ghost Warriors is WATER TRASH.
Lets put it this way... Ghost Warriors have been entirely inactive for weeks and are waiting for us all to ghost (wink wink). If you can't beat that by logging on and playing, um... can you try?