Back in GMG Jura WAS the strongest character, except for Laxus (even then, he weakened him to the point that Sting could easily finish him off). Now we have reason to believe otherwise. I see NO reason to believe otherwise here, especially since Midnight has remained the defacto leader and the only one who ever accomplishes anything among the group.
Except for Laxus, exactly. I'm not trying to diminish Jura's strength or imply that he wasn't top tier back in the day. My point is that hype from words can be misleading. You're saying there's no reason to believe otherwise, well i stated my reasons (which you disagree with).
I don't know what you mean by being the leader, or accomplishing stuff others don't accomplish. Actually when OS was reunited it was Cobra who took the initiative of killing their former leader Brain, Midnight didn't do anything to be honest. And if being the leader automatically means you're beating everyone else in a fight, then this thread would have no point.
Not really, if they had said it that would mean that hiro had a point to make. They didn't, so its a moot point.
I don't understand what you mean
But doesn't matter.
It was hardly that easily, not to mention Erza hard countered Midnight, he still provided her with a fight. Mind you back then Erza was literally leagues above Natsu, to the point that that second origin on top of LFD barely closed the gap between the two after the time-skip (as Erza only activated her second origin late in the arc). OS Natsu had neither of those. So really, Midnight tussling with Erzais actually WAY more impressive then anything Cobra did.
Erza didn't counter Midnight, unless you're sying anyone who can attack him is a counter. As said aabove already by the somebody, the moment Midnight uses his magic to attack, he can not use it to defend himself anymore, which means that any figher who has a long range ability CAN counter just like Erza did. In CObra's case there is a DS roar.
He provided her with a fight because Erza had to find the weaknesses of his magic. Which wasn't an easy task and needed her to tank things and try things out. Once the weaknesses were known the fight was over. It was not a high diff, or a mid diff for that matter.
Erza wasn't leagues above him at all. She was stronger that's for sure, but if the two were to fight back then it would have been a high diff for Erza. That's not what i call being leagues apart.
Losing to Erza isn't more impressive than toying with Natsu. Really, it's not. Even if Natsu was inferior to Erza, in the end he still defeated Zero (and Jellal's power-up was gone at this point). So no, that's just my opinion of course, but Cobra had a way better showing than Midnight in this arc.
Never watched it and don't care to because its just that, filler.
Well you should

I read countless times that it had been considered as canon, since Hiro stated it himself blablabla. In any case, you're free to disregard feats from this arc, i don't mind.
Really disagree, Midnights feats blow Cobras out of the water. I rank Cobra at the same level as Racer. Those two hard relatively equal feats and were doing equally well against Jellal and both had the same futile attempt at August to boot.
Oh, huh. Welllllllll, we will have to agree to disagree then. =)
Futile attempt? Yes it was futile... Jellal's attempt was futile as well, so was Midnight's. That's really not saying much. August being leagues above (for real this time

) them makes all of their attempts futile. The fact that Midnight's magic was stated to be "peculiar" doesn' mean he's stronger than the rest.
No doubt they can, but Cobra isn't one of said top-tiers. And I don't even think Midnight would need his illusions to deal with Cobra.
You'll need to explain how he does anything then. Midnight without his illusions doesn't do much at all. What did he do to Jellal besides illusions? Nothing. Actually once the illusion was stopped by Jellal Midnight already seemed defeated and didn't try anything else.
Cobra isn't top tier but he still can hear Midnight's thoughts, which renders illusions useless. He can also just close his eyes in order to escape the illusion, and still be able to target Midnight or predict his attacks thanks to his ability to hear his thoughts.
Hyberion was the only one of the GoI August also noted, do we see a pattern here?
It means your magic is good enough to impressive the king of magic, someone who destroyed the very character you are pitting Midnight up against without a single word of praise. At the very least that means that Midnights magic is >>> Cobras. And Cobra isn't some sort of massive power house in physical stats either, so I see absolutely no reason to believe that that could close the massive gap that the magic has left.
Wielding a rare, atypical, unusual magic doesn't mean it is stronger than a more basic one.
If August were to see Natsu fight with fire, would he see this is an atypical magic? No he wouldn't. Doesn't mean Midnight is stronger or would win against Natsu just because he wields a rarer magic.
There's no such thing as a "massive gap" between Cobra and Midnight...

I really don't agree with that point tbh.
I think we'll have to agree to disagree, because i can see you're putting thoughts into your posts but i really haven't been convinced. And i'm probably not going to convince you either. I'll give you the last word.