Confusion Over Aliases and Chords

[mostdefinitelynotcody]

Aliases work wonderfully to add another layer of abstraction. I am currently using them to move my entire keyboard up one row without having to change my entire layout. Everything went great except with my cords. The deliniated valid key names are not behaving as mentioned in the documentation:

Note that may itself be a valid key name, in which case all references
to the key within the config file will be replaced with the new key.
Additionally, if the assigned alias is a valid key name, the corresponding
keycode will be assigned to the key by default. This makes it possible to
redefine keys before any bindings are applied and is particularly useful in
conjunction with the include mechanism to account for variations in hardware.

 # moves keys up and to the right
[aliases]
        1 = tab
        q = capslock
        a = leftshift
        z =
        2 = q
        w = a
        s = z
        x =

[main]

capslock = leftcontrol    #   works as expected, q fuctions as control

a+q = up          #  does not shift with the reast of the key board keeping the a, q binding over the expected w, 2 
a + z = down   #   

I may be missing something in the docu but can not seem to find anything mentioning this behavior. Is this working as designed or am i doing something wrong. I have alot of cords to manually change if I cant get this figured out.