After sitting out a full split of competitive play, former Team Liquid top laner Diego "Quas" Ruiz is looking for a way back into the League Championship Series. Quas has been approached by both NRG Esports and Renegades, sources close to the organizations and player tell ESPN.
While both options are available to Quas, sources indicate that the NRG is far more practical if current NRG top laner Jung "Impact" Eon-yeong is sold to Cloud9, a deal which is likely to happen, according to sources close to that player. That deal became more solidified in the past few days, as Cloud9 announced today that it would move its top laner An "Balls" Le and jungler Lee "Rush" Yoonjae to its new Challenger team.
The latter for Quas is far more interesting, however, with Renegades currently looking to extend its deals with top laner Shin "Seraph" Woo-yeong and Noh "Ninja" Geon-woo. Additionally, in an interview today with theScore esports, Renegades general manager Rob "Leonyx" Lee stated "if we are able to keep Ninja and Seraph," making it unclear if the team has locked down either player.
Interest in Quas's future has become increasingly popular across social media over the last few days. Several days ago, rumors surfaced that Quas would join Brazilian squad KaBuM! e-Sports, something sources close to the player tell ESPN is very unlikely unless his potential deals in North America fall through.
Additionally, an audio recording of a conversation on a Twitch stream between Immortals CEO Noah Whinston and Quas was leaked on the League of Legends subreddit today with plans to piece together a Challenger team for its main squad. That team would've housed former Ember jungler Lucas "Santorin" Larsen, Liquid substitute support Andy "Smoothie" Ta, and the Unicorns of Love duo of AD carry Pierre "Steeelback" Medjaldi and mid laner Hampus "Fox" Myhre.
That team is no longer going to happen, according to a reddit comment made by Whinston on the Immortals account today following the leaked audio conversation.
If Quas accepts a deal from NRG or Renegades, it will be his first time playing competitively since August 2015. During last off-season, Quas was abruptly suspended from Team Liquid for reasons unknown, while the team investigated the "event" further. Less than a week later, Quas announced his retirement from competitive play.
Since being suspended from the competitive team, Quas has primarily served as a streamer on Twitch under the Liquid banner. Now it seems he wants to come back to North America for a chance to prove himself once again as a top player in the region.
Renegades, Liquid, and NRG Esports declined to comment on this report.