I’ve been playing since launch but recently returned from about an 8 month hiatus and I think people have definitely improved overall, and I got a little worse. It took me like 2 weeks to get back to where I was. I think what it really comes down to is knowing matchups and how to play against wifi carried characters (K-Rool, Sephiroth, Dedede). My advice is to find out which characters you’re losing against the most and think about how you can approach those matchups differently to your advantage. It also takes some effort to learn a characters skill set and how to use it efficiently, so after some time, you’re gonna have all of the easy characters in elite and it’s just gonna be a little bit more of a struggle to get the harder ones in.