With Fairy Tail (like in most action anime series) the next battle is often only a few short moments away. With dragons and evil immortal wizards and Dark Guilds seemingly around every corner, it constantly demands mages to be at their very best, growing in strength to handle the next challenge.

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And of course, every guild has their own heavy hitter—someone who’s vastly more powerful than nearly everyone else on the team, someone that can be counted on to defend the guild when things are at their worst. This list takes a look at each official guild’s most powerful member, and ranks them according to their skill and strength in battle.

10 CAIT SHELTER: ROUBAUL

It’s easy to forget Roubaul because people forget Cait Shelter. They were mostly a method to introduce Wendy, who promptly joined Fairy Tail as soon as the Oracion Seis arc was over. But while Roubaul wasn’t around long, we do know he was powerful enough to help invent the Nirvana magic alongside his people.

At the same time, he was so powerful he could generate an entire guild image for Wendy that existed and seemed fully functioning for years. That had to have taken an insane amount of magic.

9 QUATRO PUPPY: BACCHUS

bacchus groh

We don’t get to see many of the members of Quatro Cerberus. It feels like their guild is tiny, even though supposedly the members who passed the preliminaries to get into the Magic Games were all just a part of their younger group.

Still, we do know that of the ones we’ve seen, the most powerful has to be Bacchus, an S-Class mage who was the powerhouse of the team that entered the Games. But while Bacchus proved to be strong, he wasn’t quite good enough to overcome Elfman, who isn’t exactly one of the most dangerous members of Fairy Tail’s organization.

8 PHANTOM LORD: JOSE PORLA

jose porla fairy tail

Jose Porla was the leader of the now-disbanded Phantom Lord guild, who tried to go at it with Fairy Tail. But while their guild was eliminated, there’s no doubting his power.

He was originally one of the Ten Wizard Saints, and his powers were enough at the time to make people sick just being too close to him when he’s generating some of his shade energy. Though he’s likely been surpassed by most of the more powerful mages at this point, at the time he seemed to have no trouble smacking around Erza, Gray, and Elfman all at once.

7 BLUE PEGASUS: THE TRIMENS

It’s difficult to choose just one member of Blue Pegasus and calling them out as the most powerful. The Trimens are always seen together, and while they don’t always fight together, none of them has ever stood out as the most powerful. They all have different abilities they excel at—be it speed or offensive capabilities.

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Their status as pretty boys who serve as comic relief stop them from ever becoming more than a reliable, but ultimately not overpowered group. They rank above some of the other people on this list purely because they’re constantly seen in the show, thus growing more powerful and never falling behind in power scaling.

6 RAVEN TAIL: IVAN DREYAR

Ivan Dreyar

The son of Makarov Dreyar, Ivan left Fairy Tail because his goals of gaining more power didn’t quite align with Fairy Tail’s. He possesses the ability to create powerful illusions, and his strength leads to him forming Raven Tail, a guild opposite to Fairy Tail.

But though we can give Raven Tail all the respect, ultimately, they all got smacked down by Laxus. Laxus didn’t just beat his father Ivan, he beat every member of Raven Tail all at once, and didn’t even seem to struggle with it. No matter how powerful he claims to be, there’s no much that can be said when you’re outclassed like that.

5 LAMIA SCALE: JURA NEEKIS

Jura Neekis

Jura Neekis is one of the primary reasons why people respect the Lamia Scale guild so much. The character’s incredible strength and use of his Rock Magic have allowed him to become one of the Ten Wizard Saints.

Because of his power, he was able to bring down two of the Oracion Seis’ key members. But as impressive as that is, we’ve seen him lose to people like Laxus before. And when he was asked to go up against God Serena, he and all the other Wizard Saints were laid low with shocking ease.

4 MERMAID HEEL: KAGURA MIKAZUCHI

Kagura’s basically the only character on Mermaid Heel that’s worth taking seriously, to begin with. She’s said to be about as strong as Erza in terms of raw power, which instantly catapults her above most people on this list. Her desire to avenge her younger brother Simon has led to her becoming an excellent swordswoman.

Even though she usually tries not to even draw the sword, she saves it for the one man she’s always meant to kill: Jellal, the man responsible for taking her brother’s life. Still, between her skill with the blade and her gravity magic, she’s able to run over nearly everyone until Dimaria, a woman who could literally stop time itself. That’s a pretty respectable way to meet one’s limits.

3 SABERTOOTH: STING EUCLIFFE

Sting doesn’t have the best showing against Fairy Tail, as both he and Rogue were solo’d by a Natsu who couldn’t even use Dragon Force. However, that doesn’t make Sting weak by any means. He was one of Sabertooth’s most powerful members even when the team was introduced, and he continued to grow afterwards.

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He’s also the leader of Sabertooth, because when the last leader injured his friend, he got ticked off and blew a hole in the leader at the time. Then when that same leader returned powered up, he and Rogue crushed him again. Sting is the strongest member of one of the strongest guilds.

2 CRIME SORCIERE: JELLAL

Natsu vs Jellal (Fairy Tail).

The independent guild Crime Sorciere is made up entirely of former criminals, leaders, and head members of Dark Guilds. The leader of their group is Jellal, a young man led astray by those dark people who worshipped Zeref. Jellal’s power, even split in half, was considered enough to make him one of the Ten Wizard Saints.

However, as powerful as he is, he wasn’t able to beat Erza without trickery and lost to a Natsu who had the Dragon Force activated. There’s a clear limit to his ability, and while that ceiling is high, we witness it time and again.

1 FAIRY TAIL: GILDARTS

Gildarts Clive in Fairy Tail.

The most obvious guess would be Natsu, but for him to make it to the top of this list, we’d have to be discussing potential power over what he actually has. Natsu’s undoubtedly one of the most powerful members of the team, but his victories always come through a one-time power-up. Gildarts doesn’t need any such thing and is just strong because he’s strong.

He’s an S-Class mage whose power of destruction is so great the entire city changes shape to avoid him. He was capable of bringing down Magic King August even after August was able to defeat all of the organization Crime Sorciere on his own. Gildarts is the sort of character who’s so powerful the author finds reasons to keep him out of action, so he doesn’t prematurely end the story.

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