EPTAfter TI4 s4 left, and they had a lot of struggles with their roster. The other members couldn't really get things working without s4. I don't think that necessarily had much to do with the patches but just how big a piece s4 is of that team. Then s4 came back, and I don't think Alliance was that bad online even last patch. They had 2 dreadful LAN performances of course, but imo those performances were clearly below what could be expected based on their online play. Now they changed their roster, patch definitely switched in favor of them, and they seem to do well again. But I don't think the gap from them to the top was necessarily that huge even last patch. I would have expected them to at least have a reasonable showing even at Frankfurt based on how they looked before that.
Alliance maybe jumps out as a team that hasn't done well in some patches because of how dominant they were in the TI3 era. Few players/teams have been consistently very close to the top, some others have consistently been a bit behind the best teams. But I think Alliance's biggest struggles can simply be put down to s4 being a crucial piece of the lineup that the other players need to find success, and with s4 they have been at least relatively competitive all the time imo.
