You'd find that I don't easily dance to whatever tune I hear.
Is that another way to say "Whatever you're saying i'm not going to change my mind"? If you're not open to debate there's no point continuing any further.
Natsu is the strongest. Zeref needs his immortality just to keep up, and in this tournament he doesn't have FH.
Zeref was already top tier before having FH, and Natsu has never been shown having the upperhand on Zeref (aside from their first fight, where Zeref wasn't even fighting for real). Aside from Zeref who CAN be considered inferior to Natsu with no immortality (which is already open to debate since we should take neither PoF (Natsu) nor PiS (Zeref) into consideration), August is still the strongest. Unless you can tell me how Natsu can win against an opponent who's immute to his magic and wields even more magics than Zeref.
Let me emphasise that this is a tournament not one of those regular vs threads you can always revisit, thus all participants should approach it as such. We should all be communicating primarily with unquestionable fact & data as opposed to speculation. I won't assume what August is able to do now, especially since there's no end to an assumption until confirmed by the Author. For example, I could also assume that "August copying power has some sort of time duration, and once that time is exceeded, he can't utilise that which he had previously copied. I assume this to be the case because.............................."
Then you'd assume something else about my assumption, and the game doesn't end. In the regular vs thread, this is fine but since this is a tournament and time is short, I'm not all that interested in the assumptions.
Alright, let's talk about facts.
August has been known to be the King of Magic, mastering more magic than Zeref. He has been shown to be able to counter and use the magics of CS members (namely, Jellal, Cobra, Racer and Midnight). During his fight against Gildarts he used Meteor again despite Jellal not being present.
He also used several magics that were not wielded by any characters nearby: his shield against Laxus's shield, his suicidal attack, and the sleep magic he used on Brandish. I could talk about telepathy during his fight against CS, but Jellal might be able to use this - shown during his council time? I don't recall.
Anyway, these are facts from the manga. I don't think you can argue with that. Was my asumption really an asumption then?
You're actually the guy trying to create August limitations that were never stated or shown in the manga.
Be prepared for a desilusion if you really think Erza advances against August. But feel free to believe so.