The People of Rivals of Aether: Europe – OliveOily

This article is part of a community-made interview series featuring some of the top players and volunteers behind the grassroots European scene.

Welcome back, today I’m here with the interview of one of our best competitors, TO and old community leader, OliveOily!

View the other interviews from this series:

Who are you?

I’m OliveOily! A Dutch top Wrastor player. I’ve been a TO, I’ve been our community leader, and I’ve been just a competitor. I used to TO a lot, including my own local series and the official online RCS events.

These days I mostly just play at offline events, never want to miss a chance to meet up with the community.

When did you first join the community?

I first joined the community back in early 2017 though it took me a while to actually get invested and become a consistently present member of the community. I remember I first played the game just before Etalus was added.

What has been your best/favourite moment with Rivals?

It’s hard to pinpoint a single favourite moment. Winning Albion, or getting top 8 at Genesis are the first that come to mind. It’s not so much single moments that makes my time with Rivals so great. It’s the people I met through it. Most my friends, and most importantly my girlfriend are people I only got to get this close with because of Rivals events.

How would you describe your playstyle in Rivals?

Back when I was ranked the highest I ever was, and when there were the most events for me to travel out to, I tried to always strike second. Stay back, move a lot, and see if you can whiff punish everything with a quick down tilt. After the lockdown paused all locals I came back a bit more aggressive, but I want to go back to that playstyle.

What are you looking forward to most in Rivals 2?

What I’m looking forward to most in Rivals 2 is seeing new characters come to life. I’ve always been one of those people that go on and on about the scraps of lore the Rivals universe has. Seeing more of that come to life and become “real” will be great. I’m really hoping to see more story mode characters get to be in the game. Loxodont, Mayreed, that sort of thing.

Any closing statements?

I’d like to tell everyone to attend an international tournament if you can. Before lockdown we were getting players from so many different places coming together to make a big event. Ever since offline events had to take a break we’ve not seen one of those events happen again. A last one for Rivals 1 would be amazing.

Join me next Monday as we continue The People of Rivals of Aether: Europe!