Do Alpha Cutoff materials still render slow? U5.6 or 2017

For the longest time I was thinking alpha cutoff materials would render the fastest on mobile but I've now seen several older articles and posts talking about the performance of cutoff materials rendering slow on mobile. Is this still the case?

*I'm using it for fences and tree lines in the background.

 

I'm *guessing* it's not as bad as it used to be. In Apple's guidelines it seems to treat alpha testing/discard as the same as alpha blending, since both cause overdraw.

But this quite recent pdf by imgtec : http://cdn.imgtec.com/sdk-documentation/PowerVR+Performance+Recommendations.The+Golden+Rules.pdf

says the following:

So I think it's still wise to avoid it.