User blog comment:Ncduru/Top 5 Favorite Arcs/@comment-1454981-20150906202138

I'm old school so I'll go with Fighting Festival, or "Battle of Fairy Tail arc", as my number one. Laxus was the perfect antagonist at that point of the series. Superbly foreshadowed premise. Also, as brief as it way have been, Mystogan vs. Laxus will always be dear to my heart.

Tenrou Island a very close second. The initial 4/5 of the arc was fantastic. S-class trials, transitioning to an invasion by the strongest Dark Guild of the Baram Alliance, to Makarov vs. Hades(Master vs. Master!). Then, Fairy Tails strongest mages facing off against Grimiore Heart's strongest all over the island. Hades is by far the best protagonist in the entire series. What an arc...Theeen things went really off the rails once the final confrontation initiated between Hades and Team Natsu. Hades' rubbish, but obviously inevitable defeat, was what ruined the arc for me. Probably the second strongest antagonist in the entire series; defeated by a trio of flying cats. Poppycock!

Phantom Lord is a solid third for me. The two strongest guilds in all of Fiore going to war, two dragon slayers duking it out in a classic magic street fight, and two wizard saints going toe-to-toe? How can you not love that arc?

Grand Magic Games is my fourth but only because of the original plot. A magical tournament between the strongest guilds in all of Fiore. It may have strayed from that half-way through the arc, but it had some glamorous moments. Jellal vs. Jura, Natsu & Gajeel vs. Sting & Rogue, Laxus vs. Jura(Orga got starched, he doesn't deserve to be mention),etc. Lots of great moments. Vast amount of potential, but sadly the arc strayed waaay too far from the original plot and down a whole it wasn't going to get out of.

Lastly, it may be premature, but I'll go with Alvarez Empire thus far only because of the possibility of seeing the Spriggan 12 vs. the Wizard Saints, and Zeref vs. Acnologia. I fully expect the mages of Fairy Tail to somehow combat and unfortunately defeat the majority of the Spriggan 12. Although given that this is going to be a full scale war kinda gets my hopes up for a great curtain closer of the series.

Oracion Seis and Edolas were the worst arcs in the series by far. Not even going to get into that since that's not the point of this blog.