It uses MCTS, but that's not the same thing as the claim, now is it? If you look at the win rates in the AG paper for the NN vs MCTS+NN and then consider the performance curve, use of a single TPU, crushing superiority of Master's flawless 60 blitz matches and Ke Jie matches despite very fast moves, the released self-play matches, and comparing with FB's Dark Forest, it's clear that the AG NN all on its own, without any MCTS, is a truly formidable player that would likely crush many pros, although I don't know if it would reach Sedol or Ke Jie levels of play.
I'm not sure this was true of the first AlphaGo, probably wasn't true of the Sedol AlphaGo, and definitely isn't true of Master.