Is there anyone who you think is underrated and could surprise in Cologne?
I don't see any other team better than ours to accomplish this. But I would also consider CLG and Renegades.
The level of teams has been evening out recently, a number different names have been in the grand final at events in the recent months (EnVyUs, TSM, fnatic, Na`Vi, Virtus.pro, Cloud9), who will be the favourites to make it to top four in your mind?
If we cannot make it to the finals, I would go with Virtus.pro first, followed by fnatic, NiP and TSM.
Luminosity are looking to break into top eight
With the proliferation of both online and offline events, and having had at least one big event every weekend or every other weekend for the past few months, and with many teams travelling around Europe and North America—or both—, how do you think it will affect teams' performances?
I think playing constantly like this can hurt any team in a long period of time. In these times it is very important for the teams to set priorities, whether financial or strategic for the team image. Not only teams exposing strats and gameplays, but also the players' psychology are more vulnerable and fragile in those situations, allowing to lose the team's consistency.
Train has been in the pool for quite some time, but ESL One Cologne will be the first major to feature it, how has it developed over the recent months? Was it figured out in terms of playstyle, strategy, etc.? Is the current map pool diverse enough?
It's good to see a traditional map like Train featured at the Major. I personally have feelings and great memories on those traditional maps. In terms of pool diversity, it's good to have a greater number, forcing teams to care more about of being good on them all, instead of focusing on a few maps, making the opponents' studying easier.