Alex never lived and died by his grabs in this game....I don't think he's dead even beyond that we haven't got fingers on anyone's VT2 yet so who knows.
And what are you talking about Shoto's for? Literally Akuma was the only viable Shoto in season 2. Ryu might see a resurgence this season, but Ken is still weak imo even with the new changes. If anyone is going to be even stronger its going to be Guile perhaps Dhalsim as pushback on a ton of standing and crouching normals been applied to damn near everyone. Sakura looks like she'll fit alright as well.
You might have missed my post and or sentence before...
"shoto-lite" aka Nash. DP (Dragon Kick in his case), haokuken (easiest boom to perform giving the hado motion), and a teleport. We can excuse the teleport if we want with "superior movement", though he honestly felt like Akuma all over again when he first came out, sanz the air hado. Shoto's and or Shoto-lites will always take the crown. Are we really surprised Akuma beat out a Karin? Or anyone else for that matter? Its been like that since early tournaments....
Just look at the history of EVO;
'96 - SFA2; Valle using Ken, Ryu, Sagat (a shoto-heavy in my opinion)
The alpha 3 series, was the only time we saw some distinct top 5's but that was due to how cheesy V-Sakura and V-Akuma were, so shoto's took that one as well. In fact, the only time we seem Shoto's go away for a sec, is when Yun is introduced in 3rd strike. And that was only with KO who was a fluke champ anyway. Not forgetting about Chun-Li of course, but that was due again, to how cheap she was.
If they aren't cheap, they're shoto, or both. Back to my original point; Alex is dead. He's always going to be bottom tier, at that's fine with me, he was still "manageable"....but with these nerfs, he's garbo tier, along with Juri.