Mikhail "Dosia" Stolyarov is a rifler for Gambit Gaming, a Major veteran and he is the X God. Gambit recently clutched an invite to the upcoming Major at ESL One Cologne 2016 by taking down OpTic Gaming, Team EnVyUs and G2 Esports and head into the final week of ELEAGUE on a high.

Dosia was kind enough to answer some questions from theScore esports, talking about the X God meme and qualifying for the Major.

You’re a notable Counter-Strike veteran in the CIS scene, attending multiple CS:GO Majors and have played for many top organizations. How does playing under Gambit Gaming, a relatively new org to CS:GO, compare to playing under your previous orgs?

I’ve been under numerous organizations, but nowhere did I see such a professional approach as in Gambit. The organization makes everything possible for its players to have everything that they need in time.

Gambit had a lot of fun marketing their former League of Legends players and they took the same approach with you in particular, playing off of the Dosia X God meme. How did the idea of the video for Dosia’s Girlfriend first start? What was your initial reaction to hearing the idea?

I think they had this idea even before acquiring a CS:GO team and I just perfectly fit it, because I’m X God.

I don’t like giving interviews or shooting videos, so my initial reaction was negative, but when they started shooting it and showed me the first frames, I got hooked. It’s very cool to see how it turned out to be.

As of today, the video has over half a million views, did you expect that kind of reception? How have non-CS friends or your family reacted to the video?

I didn’t expect such a reaction at all. After it all, my friends were texting me asking about this video and my girlfriend, like 'Why are you hiding her from us?'

Can we expect a new video ahead of ESL One Cologne 2016?

It depends on our content manager. There is definitely going to be something, but it’s not clear whether it will be about me or not.

A couple months ago wayLander parted ways with the team, why did this happen?

He had his view of the game that he didn’t want to change. He plays very well, and his play style isn’t bad, just like all the others, but it just didn’t fit our team.

What type of preparations did you guys have prior to the Cologne Major qualifier?

We gathered for boot camp seven days before the tournament and decided to change our play style, to play more freely while not forgetting about rounds. We also concentrated on improving our aim, as it was difficult to do so with our high ping that we have at home.

What would you say were the keys to the team’s success at the qualifier? How did you guys qualify there, when you weren’t able to qualify for smaller tournaments prior?

The key factor, undoubtedly, was the fact that the qualifiers were in LAN format, which feels completely different from playing at home; maybe it’s our mindset. When you sit at home you don’t feel any pressure, but when you’re at LAN you scream when you win a round, give high fives and see all the emotions that your team is experiencing.

At the Major, you guys have been drawn into a group against Astralis, Counter Logic Gaming and Team Dignitas. This is interesting because it’s almost the exact group you guys had during MLG Major Championship: Columbus, switching Dignitas for Team EnVyUs. How do you feel about it this time around?

We always respect our opponents and we’re not going to underestimate anyone, we will prepare for every match. We committed a lot of mistakes at the last Major that prevented us from going to the playoffs, and we've worked to not make the same mistakes in the future.