The reason Aris went smoke is likely because they sprang the patch on all of the players the night before the tournament. No one had time to adjust. Aris has been playing Raiden lately, but he goes on during the stream about how badly he's been nerfed due to B+3, 1, 2 being -1 on block. His only alt is smoke, and he prolly went with him because he had no other choice. He's talked about how smoke is bad in the past and dropped him even before any nerfs.
I'd like to hear more about these buffs that supposedly happened. I don't know why they take one thing out and compensate with another like this, it's annoying but at least it's something. Offhand though, it didn't look like smoke bomb was scaling any less during combos.