Usually, high level smash communities gravitate towards large, metropolitan areas so, if you're far from those, then you probably won't have a lot of luck finding a large community of really skilled players unless you're fine with playing online in which case erico9001 has the right idea because FG is not fun or competitive. Finding some friends that play smash competitively rather than a large community is tougher since individuals don't tend to advertise themselves like communities do so finding them is harder. Is there a thread on these boards for searching for local players to connect with? It'd be a great idea now that I think about it and would help folks with poor internet (or poor patience for other people's internet).
As for getting better while not practicing against players, that's what I use youtube for. Watch top players at tournaments, see what they do, practice against cpu's/training mode. Usually, getting better isn't about learning combos or understanding frame data though, it's about mindset. If you change your mindset to better read your opponent or to better react to an opponent's action, then you'll get better but until then, I feel like progress can't happen since the mental game of smash is the most important. In order to do that, you'll have to find folks to play with and that's what smashladder is for. Whether you like playing online or not, it's still a decent place to understand the patterns of others. While you may not be able to react like you could offline, simply knowing those patterns is important.
P.S. @
NarukamiSSB
Love your avatar. TT is my favorite show of all time and Raven is my favorite character of all time.