Seeing an alliance from the inside is a lot different than seeing it from the outside, even looking at the rankings. I disagree with Siren13, a lot!, about what went down in the Vipers. They sold us out for the devil. Or the word of a devil-Petrika. And they walked out on us! The strongest of the Vipers walked out on their alliance and left the weakest of us to fend for ourselves! There was betrayal from the inside of that alliance, before the betrayers got their betrayal in AoH. And shortly after, as AoH and now Defiant, they've done their part to prey on us. Nothing noble about that scenario, the ones they promised to bring up and protect, the noobies in their alliance.
And the Greeks were hollowed out from the insides. Just like their sister alliance *THE SHADOW*. They looked good on paper, but inside the forums, their was no one there. And sure you can understand a leader or any one player having to take off for personal reasons, but one person doesn't make an alliance. I was stunned to find an alliance ranked 8th i think it was at the time, TS, and not a soul was in the forums answering posts. NO ONE. I watched everyone who came around looking for help, eventually leave. I never saw a leader there. Since some of the same people ran the Greeks, I assumed it was the same situation there, because they just started fading, within a week or two. They may have been good once, but maybe it was just a few players that made that happen, and just a lot of numbers otherwise.