Matchmaking has a few flags to look out for, I shall number them here:
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How equal in power are all your members? If you have a player at 1.8m and another at 1m then you will be punished by the matchmaking and face much larger alliances than yourself
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Are you 25/25 members? If you are under 25 members the matchmaking also punishes you
Normal matchmaking seems to have a delta of 10m at the top range, which is around 38-40m, if you are really struggling I would suggest dropping in power a bit and collectively increasing your teams top 5 for war. If you want help on how to reach ruby and the journey to it then follow this guide I posted:
The punishment matchmaking has a delta of above 10m, our current war has a 32m alliance and we are with a 50m alliance. This is because they have both of the above flags triggered, they are under 25 members and they have a 2m member with an 80k member.