  We analyze a recently proposed supersymmetry breaking mass deformation of the
$E_1$ superconformal fixed point in five dimensions which, at weak gauge
coupling, leads to pure $SU(2)$ Yang-Mills and which was conjectured to lead to
an interacting CFT at strong coupling. We provide an explicit geometric
construction of the deformation using brane-web techniques and show that for
large enough gauge coupling a global symmetry is spontaneously broken and the
theory enters a new phase which, at infinite coupling, displays an instability.
The Yang-Mills and the symmetry broken phases are separated by a phase
transition. Depending on the structure of the potential, this can be first or
second order.
