User blog comment:FairyRaven/Fairy Tail Chapter 354: Ephialtes, Review and Commentary/@comment-49.144.230.183-20131004225548/@comment-7418318-20131005084131

Remember the timeskip!

Griomoire Heart was the strongest seven years ago. That's plenty of time for Tartarus to close the power-gap and grow further in power, especially since they are now the sole leaders of the Baram Alliance and thus can freely recruit from all remaining Dark Guild in Fiore (as far as we know) unbound by whatever treaties the big three had among each other.