Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-4519633-20141022032431/@comment-28211584-20160529195342

Eskaver wrote: This topic is about being the most powerful, not being the best fighter. Skill and expertise can help a bit, but at the end of the day, name of the game is power.

The Dragon using magic in the Land without Magic shows he's at least very skilled. He also seemed capable of almost creating a portal which Regina and Zelena can't even try to do without the Sorcerer's wand.

Merlin, Dark Swan and Dark One are technically all close in power, but Merlin gets the boost up because he's experienced, Emma had extra raw power and was the most powerful Dark One (before Rumple absorbed all the power) and then there's the usual Dark One.

The list is power, skill and experince can help, but they don't really change to much how powerful someone is. I'll give an example.

Regina has more raw power than Cora, but I think Cora makes up the difference with experience.

Likewise, the Apprentice might have more expertise and skill than most Dark Ones (as he was taught by Merlin and existed longer than them), but he's not more powerful than them, even if he'd probably beat them, but that's speculation. the topic speaks "who is more powerful", but what would be the "powerful" definition? ,  powerful   Refers the  one who has the  power or  more power than the others, we can consider power as a variety of magic (like telekinesis, transmutation, elemental control, teleportation, paralysis, etc ...), we can analyze power as the strongest (like a glass cannon cause much damage, but quickly loses to a sound gun or a hammer), or who is more skilful or who has more raw power. these are ways to analyze the most "powerful" in case I'm analyzing everything together (raw power, skill, variety and knowledge) and I think this is fairest way to analyze, because as you said yourself, merlin gets a imbulse upwards because of the experience (this is not because only the raw power) and that's why he won emma, as he said "I'm in this game for a long time", and it is logical and obvious that helps, emma would not able to defeat Maleficent (even theoretically having more raw power than her) so i do not rate emma as more powerful than maleficent being that in total currently she is not; and returning to talk about the dragon, we can not say anything, he tries to open a portal but could not, regina never tried to open a portal and we do not know how it would be if she tries, and he used that lotus flower (a magic item), that helped him to see through worlds and try to open a portal, then this done does not say anything to classify him as less or more powerful than the regina, and about using magic in a land without magic does not mean anything either, it is a question of knowledge is not power, rumple could not use magic there, but the Apprendice could, we just sort the apprendice as more powerful than the rumple ?? ;i say NO. because it's a matter of knowledge, as the own dragon speaks that the land without magic  has magic, we only have to know how to handle it, this knowledge that not rumple or regina had.