Denial arent playing next round and there is no Denial v2 either, just to clear that up, and theres no one alliance Denial members are going to as a whole, be it an existing or new alliance, I say this with quite some certainty. If I wanted to HC or run an alliance it would be Denial (same goes for Reese and eksero), since that is my (our) alliance, why would I (we) bother setting up something new that would inevitably be exactly the same. I look forward to playing a round as a peon again in an existing alliance and being able to focus on my own planet for once
I agree with the general theme here that lack of co-operation or personal greed (by flagshipped members/fencing HC's), will prevent any alliance but ascendancy winning round 30. I hope I'm wrong and every ally hits asc out of protection, but since everyones scared of asc hitting them back (oh noes, incomings!), they probably wont.