With Project Anarchy returning to Cosa Nostra and slipping down the board, that spot for 2nd is changing seemingly every few hours.

Who is gonna grab that spot and hold it?

As it is now it's not even fair to say which legions are the top 5
Badgers slip into top 5 here and there.

Maybe one or two of the legions are top 5 because they have a lot buffed and NPCing.

Any predictions?

2nd is mostly between us, Ni, and CRA, but buffing currently has things shuffling through the top 8 with LoI-TNO keeping fairly stable positions, the minimum strength time I used to use to gauge monthly growth is a bit too late at night for me to get a proper estimate

My guess is on IC.

CRA has strength but I also don't see them improving much except when they pick up another strong ship.

IC also congrats on no more builder professions.
Lots of excavators and I would guess IC ships are likely to have a higher combined ap/hr than the rest.

Though Ni does have some monster ships you see much from them and some of them are just long time players who are now slipping behind the curve.

Congrats to CRA to, I dont think 1 year ago anybody expected them to climb this high

thanks Ben....

Well a year ago CRA was about teaching low ranks.
Somewhere minds were changed and the desire to be top 10 seemed to arise and then X Factor lost a few ships.

Yeah, the board bounce has been interesting. While I agree with the earlier statements, I wouldn't count Ni too far out of the race either though. There are 10 ships at 600 rank or under; which means there is tons of room for growth. If even just half of them hit a good auto rank stride, Ni could pick up both rank slots and strength slots. I think it is still a good 3 way tie for 2nd place. We will see what the next couple of months will reveal. It will probably be set by the new year.

*And off in the distance the race to take the coveted spot of the next most hated legion grows fierce and slips into one war after another, as the top contenders push and pull all tricks out of their hats to bring in the next big recruits from yet more and more major alliances falling apart at the seems due to inactivity, clashing of opinions, etc..
-But what is this? After much turmoil, and a great amount of resources spent, and lands devastated and left in ruins.....a hero emerges from the dust! "I am the legend fortold by the ancients, come to bring a balance to the for......oops, I mean, come to bring peace to the galaxy. Stop firing your blasters and cannons, and let us embrace a time of love and tranquility. Let us join hands and voices in one united song! Let the ponies be one with the wolves! Let the trees sway in the wind with the scum! Let the apostles of the colony of Negron say to the prophets of Golgotha, "We are done fighting my friends." And may our cries reach the ends of known space and beyond saying, "Unite mighty clans, the time is now!""

Nahhhhhh, forget the mumbo jumbo. Let's have some fun and blow each other up. See you all at the finish line.

Hahaha,

You know you gave proper recognition to CRA, but honestly, IC's rise has been just as interesting and impressive. You were part of tied to Infinity and broke away to find your own ground. Come to think of it, I was even one of the arguments you had with them at the time. haha. Anyway, nice work and yes, see you at the top or er, 2nd place (for now).

I don't think anyone in the top 10 is kept in check.
We all more or less do as we please.

We'll we're under heavier scrutiny that is our check and balance, as I'm sure there's things I got away with up until maybe 25-15 ish that ellicits a much greater blowback in game like where we could pick fights with anyone without really looking bad, more trolling during scraps, etc etc

Agreed! They have a VERY tight group of players who work very well together and are extremely active. CRA has definitely come a long way in the past year or so! The other thing that stands out about CRA is that all but 1 or 2 of their players actually game with a sense of honor, integrity and a complete lack of arrogance/ignorance. For a top legion, that's something that's hard to come by.

Could not agree with the latter part of your comment more. Had some really helpful interactions with CRA people that came totally out of the blue.