From: StealThisSheen | #026
Are you sure? Star Wars characters were banned from tournaments for SCIV, though that may have been because of exclusivity.
I thought DLC characters were banned unless it was a full-out update, like AE for SF4. Wasn't the problem with gems a matter of "If we don't ban them outright, do we allow all of them?"
They were banned for exclusivity. And then they were made DLC available on both consoles for the character they didn't have (i.e. 360 could get Vader and PS3 could get Yoda via DLC). Since they were both made available, exclusivity was thrown out and there was no grounds for banning them.
Of course it's still ultimately up to tournament organizers what their rulesets are (e.g. France still banned them IIRC). But DLC isn't valid grounds for banning anymore (Jill/Shuma allowed in Marvel 3, Kenshi/Rain/Skarlet allowed in MK9 but Kratos banned because he's PS3 exclusive, etc.). Makoto (DLC character) was actually considered the best in BlazBlue so it was definitely a factor if you went to tournaments.
I can't speak with complete authority on gems but it was mainly a logistical issue from what I could tell. Not only would it take up a lot of time but if there were DLC gems, tourney organizers would have to make an effort to procure all of them because that's the 'fair thing to do' or other reasons... They're not going to ban them outright without even testing them. That was a big issue some members of the FGC had with the Smash community for instance (banning items in competitive play because some thought it was 'a part of the game' and had no grounds for banning because it wasn't broken).
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