Lower amount of players does not mean that the quality of the sage increases. It simply means, that you would hunt down one side and eliminate in order to secure the winning side, before you turn to the next field (as has been a popular strategy in many other browser games with low amount of players and an elimination option).

Also, this option still would ont be considered "fair" by the lowest 30% of the players, seeing as they would be top 30% of the next lower bracket (most likely).

If anything, give it a cooldown before you can attack player X again (which still does not help you, when you are in the lowest 30% of the field).