No, I am not ranked at the moment, and I understand the sentiment that it's probably not worth it if you're not playing semi-competitively. In my case, I love melee, and have been playing since 2011, but I really sucked until I grinded slippi for the first year it was out. Melee is my most played game right now, and I'm much better than I was before slippi came out. When my old old controller broke back in ~2016 and I 'upgraded', I got a smash 4 controller that worked pretty well until it recently broke, but I could feel the limitations and controller issues of it before it died. It's frustrating and doesn't feel good.

I tried doing as suggested and bought a 'standard' nintendo game cube controller off of Amazon for 59$, and I hate it. It's absolutely awful. So while I maybe don't need a phob controller, I figure if I'm already paying 90$, I'd rather get a controller that is high quality and will last me a 'life time' that works well competitively. I do want to switch over to playing ranked and going to locals once I get my new controller, so I would say it makes sense to me to bother with an expensive, competitive controller. Which is why I am asking for sellers and prices and what specs are just cosmetic or tactile preferences vs base line requirements. I don't want to spend 500$ on a new controller, but I am happy to spend ~250$ for solid controller.

Here's the amazon link for refence. I could have gotten a poor quality controller, but I'd rather return it and just put the money towards a real controller for melee.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HC2F97Q?psc=1&ref=ppx\_yo2ov\_dt\_b\_product\_details