Back in September, we reported that Immortals’ long-standing tank David “Nomy” Ramirez would miss the Overwatch Open due to visa issues. Now, once again Nomy finds himself unable to attend a huge North American LAN event due to his visa situation. According to the team, his position as tank in Immortals will be temporarily taken by coach Chance for the NGE Winter Premiere.

Nomy has been with Immortals since before they were picked up as the Sodipop roster, but has so far been unable to attend offline events with his team. At the Overwatch Open, Immortals used wgb as a replacement, then of Gale Force eSports. The team finished last place without a map win, losing to Fnatic and Cloud9, but they have made significant developments since then.

At NGE Winter Premiere their coach, Chance will fill in on tank. He has prior top level experience on tank and was originally going to fill in for Immortals at the Overwatch Open as well before other commitments took precedent.

Immortals head into the four-team LAN finals of Winter Premiere as the top seed. They came first in both round-robin stages, going 6-1 and then 10-2; they are scheduled to face Luminosity Gaming tomorrow in the single-elimination playoffs.

Chance will be incredibly comfortable with the Immortals players and style after his time as their coach. His experience and knowledge should allow him to slot in fairly easily, but it is anybody's guess how the change will affect Immortal's overall performance.

A more important question for the long-term Immortals roster is whether Nomy can remain with the team if he is continually unable to attend LANs. If he cannot attend offline events in the US in the future, his career is likely to hit a brick wall.

The Immortals roster for the Winter Premiere finals is now:

  • Christopher "GrimReality" Schaefer (DPS)
  • Brady "Agilities" Girardi (Flex DPS)
  • George "Hyped" Maganzini (Flex)
  • Zac "Chance" Palmer (Tank)
  • Athen "Aythen" Zhu (Support)
  • Stefano "Verbo" Disalvo (Support)