CS:GO
In our preparation for the biggest Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament to date, ESL One Cologne 2015, we had the opportunity to catch up with the coach of 
Renegades and former HLTV.org Staff member, Chris 'GoMeZ' Orfanellis. Read on to find out about the team's preparation for the event and their expectations heading into it.
Hello GoMeZ and welcome to SK Gaming. Intel Extreme Masters and ESL One Cologne's Asian qualifier were the two most recent offline events you have participated in. Your team managed to finish third at IEM over teams such as SK Gaming, mousesports and Counter Logic Gaming and had no trouble qualifying for the upcoming major. What can you tell us about your team's play at those two events? Do you think you have enough time to sharp your game style in time for ESL One Cologne and surprise your opponents even more than you did at Gamescom?
ESL One Cologne 2015 is coming up in around a week from now. How is your preparation going on for the tournament? Have you bootcamped or planning to? Do you feel confident and ready for the tournament as of now?
Your team is assigned in Group A together with Ninjas in Pyjamas, Team SoloMid and Counter Logic Gaming. What are your thoughts regarding the group? How well have you prepared against these three teams particularly? Does your team feel stressed playing any of the mentioned opponents or perhaps expecting an upset from any particular team?
What do you think of the new format released for this major? Are you positive about the group stage changes or prefer other formats such as best-of-three series for the group stage or anything alike?
How much time have you been in Cologne? What do you think of the city and the environment there? Which places have you visited or planning to later this month?
Thank you for the interview and your time spend with SK Gaming, GoMeZ. I wish you best of luck and a pleasant stay in Cologne. The last words belong to you.
Stay tuned to SK Gaming for full coverage of ESL One.
Renegades and former HLTV.org Staff member, Chris 'GoMeZ' Orfanellis. Read on to find out about the team's preparation for the event and their expectations heading into it.Hello GoMeZ and welcome to SK Gaming. Intel Extreme Masters and ESL One Cologne's Asian qualifier were the two most recent offline events you have participated in. Your team managed to finish third at IEM over teams such as SK Gaming, mousesports and Counter Logic Gaming and had no trouble qualifying for the upcoming major. What can you tell us about your team's play at those two events? Do you think you have enough time to sharp your game style in time for ESL One Cologne and surprise your opponents even more than you did at Gamescom?
"The first event was the ESL Asia Qualifier in Malaysia. This event was a bit different to most as the Asians have a unique play style and not a lot of demos to study. We watched a few demos and identified their strengths and weaknesses and came up with a game plan to beat it. We then went straight to Germany for Gamescom. Our invite was quite rushed and with the ESL event the weekend before we didn't have any time to specifically prepare. This ended up being OK as the format was random and we had no idea who we would play on what map. Our results were a little lackluster with only wins versus SK Gaming and some heavy losses to Mousesports and TSM. Historically every time we boot camp in Europe we have decent results (Gfinity is a good example where we defeated NiP and fnatic), so we are using that as a guide to practice hard and hopefully achieve similar results."
ESL One Cologne 2015 is coming up in around a week from now. How is your preparation going on for the tournament? Have you bootcamped or planning to? Do you feel confident and ready for the tournament as of now?
"We have been bootcamping at the ESL Studio in Cologne since Gamescom. As we expected the first few days were a bit shaky but we are starting to get used to the EU syle of play and put in some great performances in practice."
Your team is assigned in Group A together with Ninjas in Pyjamas, Team SoloMid and Counter Logic Gaming. What are your thoughts regarding the group? How well have you prepared against these three teams particularly? Does your team feel stressed playing any of the mentioned opponents or perhaps expecting an upset from any particular team?
"Our first match is going to be versus TSM and this is probably the hardest 2nd seeded team in the competition. We have done some preparation for this match and also NiP but nothing for CLG as the groups will be randomized before we get a chance to play them (unless we beat TSM and they beat NiP)."
What do you think of the new format released for this major? Are you positive about the group stage changes or prefer other formats such as best-of-three series for the group stage or anything alike?
"The changes are heading in the right direction but still not ideal. I like the idea of the randomization as if you get stuck in a group of death you at least have hope and possibility. Last year we were drawn into fnatic and Na'Vi, and knowing we had to beat one of these to make it through put some strain on the preparation. Like all teams we would 100% prefer to play Best-of-Three matches."
How much time have you been in Cologne? What do you think of the city and the environment there? Which places have you visited or planning to later this month?
"This is our second visit to Cologne as we were here last year for the Gamescom Major as well. We have been here for a few weeks this time around but we haven't seen a lot of the city because of the tournaments and our heavy practice schedule. We like Cologne and the city is pretty easy to navigate on the trains."
Thank you for the interview and your time spend with SK Gaming, GoMeZ. I wish you best of luck and a pleasant stay in Cologne. The last words belong to you.
"Shoutout to our Team (Chris and Chris specifically), our sponsors AlphaDraft and the fans."
Stay tuned to SK Gaming for full coverage of ESL One.
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