If you get lucky at the top of the rankings and the other top 8 teams will not accept you as an alliance partner.
Scorched Earth Strategy is still a valid strategy.
Scorched Earth weakens all the potential alliances if all 7 ranked teams deny.
Some offseasons employ a mandatory scorched earth alliance selection to average power across alliances.
Here is a thread about the topic in 2013.
https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/s...d.php?t=117997