Now Announcing, Breaking Out NA Season 2!

On January 26 2014 02:25 Smurfett3 wrote:
what if youd like to register yet you don't have a webcame or anything to record a 15 min video of yourself?

On January 26 2014 02:30 feardragon wrote:

Honestly this is one of the requiements that I'm holding for players. You can get a cheap webcam for 10-20 dollars at Walmart these days. A lot of the point of this show is to give players exposure! That includes being able to see their beautiful faces during an interview. Becoming more than just some faceless gamer tag or disembodied voice!

On January 26 2014 02:39 Smurfett3 wrote:

heh ok and how do you confirm proof of north american residence? Alls I know is I was born in the USA and have lived here the past 19 years of my life

On January 26 2014 02:50 sWs wrote:
Hey, quick question- When we email you our ladder account will that be kept private? I've gone through a lot of effort to ladder in anonymity on a barcode. (my real name is on the acc to prove its mine)

On January 26 2014 03:26 feardragon wrote:

If that's the case and you don't know/have the proper documentation available, I will work with people on a case by case basis. For example, if you can show me proof via school report cards that you've been in school at a North American insitute for the past 3-5 years, that would probably be ok. Feel free to just e-mail the address if you have any questions on whether a particular form of proof would be valid.


This is a tough one. At some point, there will be an announcement of who qualified and through what means. I can say I don't intend to send the link to anyone but I imagine there could be "other" evidence suggesting it's your account. I also considered doing a "qualification period ending" stream and if you really did not want to be mentioned, I would try to avoid mentioning your name during such.

On January 28 2014 07:52 mYiKane wrote:
I'd love to see sWs on this show. Really great candidate i think

On February 05 2014 17:38 feardragon wrote:
Bumping since there's more info on the first qualifier that's coming up this Saturday(February 8th)! I wanted to remind people that if they want to participate in the tournament, they must submit their registration on time! Registration deadline is coming up, as is the first qualifier so hurry!

For anyone that's already registered, I'll be trying to contact you as soon as a page is up to register for the qualifier. Be on the lookout for it!

On February 08 2014 04:43 sWs wrote:


Haven't gotten any information on this yet?!

On February 08 2014 08:24 feardragon wrote:
Sorry for the delay on this guys! Bracket link is up! Had a few problems with it actually being visible.

http://www.excello.net/tournament/4593/breaking-out-s2-q1/

I'll be sending out e-mails to everyone that has applied so far. Also going to be making a reddit post. =]

Edit: Reddit post is up as well. =]
http://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/1xbavz/breaking_out_qualifier_1_for_the_show_about_up/

On February 08 2014 08:53 sWs wrote:


Any update on who the top 4 from ladder are so far?

On February 08 2014 09:06 feardragon wrote:

I very very recently(like past few hours) got a few more applications that changed the standings pretty drastically. I will say the top players as of this moment are the following:

1) MicroGamerz PiLiPiLi
2) Dust sWs
3) Clarity rebOrn
4) Deimos Siphonn
---150 point gap---
5) IvD Phog
6) Rawtalent
7) Gravity Baldwin

Those are the 4 current leaders and the 3 closest chasers. The 150 point gap between the 4 leaders and the 3 chasers may be difficult to overcome but I'm interested to see if it happens!

On February 08 2014 09:06 feardragon wrote:

I very very recently(like past few hours) got a few more applications that changed the standings pretty drastically. I will say the top players as of this moment are the following:

1) MicroGamerz PiLiPiLi
2) Dust sWs
3) Clarity rebOrn
4) Deimos Siphonn
---150 point gap---
5) IvD Phog
6) Rawtalent
7) Gravity Baldwin

Those are the 4 current leaders and the 3 closest chasers. The 150 point gap between the 4 leaders and the 3 chasers may be difficult to overcome but I'm interested to see if it happens!

On February 08 2014 17:28 Guitarcheese wrote:
Just FYI Pilipili has about 20 or so games in his match history where either a zerg barcode or a player name [TTSyf] Miku are leaving at the start giving pilipili free wins which is inflating his ladder rank by about 200-300 points.

On February 08 2014 17:39 Guitarcheese wrote:
http://imgur.com/a/NqNHe Here is a short compilation. There's a bunch more that you can look at yourself i'm just too lazy to find them all Best of luck Feardragon ^_^

On February 09 2014 00:59 Smurfett3 wrote:
Hey i just havea question, all the newly non-american/canadian flags that are in the qualifier? Did you approve them all? I guess theyt all have proof of NA residency?

On February 09 2014 02:39 IAmBelieve wrote:
Register me for the ladder please? :D

Hey! I saw that someone posted that i was having free wins. True, i got lucky and caught person when he was mad. I was streaming all my ladder games last 5-7 days. I am not sure how i can proof it and give evidence to you, but if you tell me how i will be glad to do so. Also i am pretty sure that other people got free wins as well, because it always happens . If you ever watched avilo, he always leaving games when he is mad. If you want me to give you any proofs to my legitimate i am willing to do so. Link to my twitch http://www.twitch.tv/pilipili96 . http://www.twitch.tv/pilipili96/dashboard/stats you can compare time i was streaming and playing on ladder is the same.

On February 09 2014 09:56 feardragon wrote:
Hey guys! Big updates on how everything is going!

First of all, HUGE congrats to IvD's Phog for being the first player to qualify for Breaking Out through the Breaking Out Qualifier #1! Really looking forward to having him on the show.

Now, here's an update on the current ladder standings as of this moment. There's still a good bit of time left and two little asterisks to talk about with these standings of the top 7, but here they are regardless as of about 7:30pm EST(4.5 hours before ladder lock).

1) [Clarity Gaming] rebOrn(Z) - 1649
2) [Micro Gamerz] PiLiPiLi(P) - 1639
3) [CORE] Believe(P) - 1639
4) [Dust] sWs(P) - 1610
------------------------
5) [Deimos] Siphonn - 1510
6) [IvD] Phog - 1500 - Already Qualified
7) [Micro Gamerz] - KaWiKaAkirA - 1402

So first, the two notes that need to be talked about in regards to this list.
1) First of all, Clarity Gaming's Poo and IvD's ZergZingZing are both registered for Breaking Out and their ladder profiles show they are in Grandmaster. However, for some reason I've had some trouble seeing their placement. It seems almost as if Battle.net is glitched because one section of their profile shows __ wins and __ loses, but when I go to the "current season" section of their profile, it suddenly shows 0 wins and 0 losses with a GM border. They are also not to be found on the actual GM list. I'm not sure what's up with this but I'll try to figure out their placement in GM as soon as possible.
2) There has been some controversy in regards to MgZ's PiLiPiLi. It seems he a notable number of games that were "free wins" given under 10 seconds into a game. If this was at all planned, it would be against the integrity of the qualification process and PiLiPiLi would be at least disqualified from the Ladder Qualification process. However, it is a very difficult thing to prove intention. PiLiPiLi has contacted me regarding the issue saying the following:

Right now the committee for Breaking Out is looking into the issue. More likely than not, PiLiPiLi will not be completely banned from Breaking Out unless it can somehow be proven that there was malevolent intention of boosting his ladder ranking. Instead, the committee will be determining whether his account will be considered for ladder qualification, and he will be given the chance to qualify through other means such as the second qualifier(since the first is now over), as well as potentially be considered for the invites. I understand that this is a difficult and awkward situation as allegations of cheating are always a cause for concern and heated opinions. I hope that everyone, including other players, also respect the decision that is made on the matter and realize that we are doing our best to be as fair as possible.

Thanks everyone who has been participating! I'm thinking I will likely start a stream roughly 30 minutes before the ladder lock(11:30pm EST) as a big of an "announcement" stream for the next 4 players that will qualify. If I end up doing so, I'll try to get it on the TL calendar and will be streaming at:
http://www.twitch.tv/feardragon64

Looking forward to it! Hope all the players are working hard!

On February 09 2014 11:17 Smurfett3 wrote:
isn't the next ladder lock a week before the season ends, so in march?

On February 09 2014 10:48 desRow wrote:
Tried to apply, looking forward to see who's gonna be competing this season!

On February 09 2014 11:10 feardragon wrote:
Ok so I've taken a very very thrurough look at PiLiPiLi's profile on battle.net. Based on what I have seen, PiLiPiLi will not be able to qualify for Breaking Out through the ladder qualification proccess. He will still be able to qualify through the tournament qualifiers being held, and considered for the invites.

So here's the logic behind this decision. PiLiPiLi's SC2 account is sitting in GM at an incredibly high spot right now. Due to these forfeits that have happened 3-25 seconds into a match, PiLiPiLi's account has gained a distinct and undeniable advantage over everyone else trying to qualify right now. Here are some of the findings.
1) The total extra points earned in the past 3-4 days from these forfeits are at least 327. For reference, the difference between the number one placing registered player and the 7th is about 250.
2) These match forfeits happened over the course of multiple days. This makes it seem unlikely that it was mere coincidence that PiLiPiLi kept hitting these players after requeue'ing up.
3) The two players forfeitting to PiLiPiLi were not seen forfeiting to anyone else. After combing through every game in their past week, I couldn't find any forfeits to a player besides PiLiPiLi. This makes it seem less likely that the forfeits were due to frustration with a particular race, etc. as both accounts(a barcode and another account named miku) played against various other Protoss players and won/lost.

These facts make the whole situation incredibly suspect. However, as I mentioned in a previous post, intention is very difficult to prove in these situations. Unfortunately, videos are not available on PiLiPiLi's channel from the times where those games were played(expired) so his defense is difficult to check. It's very difficult to dispute that PiLiPiLi was being targeted, but it's very difficult to make the judgement call that he was involved in it. It could have been a helpful friend acting on smurf accounts. It could have been a malicious person trying to make PiLiPiLi look bad. Maybe it was just pure coincidence. For that reason, I am making the decision not to ban PiLiPiLi completely from Breaking Out, but just from the ladder qualification.

It's regretable that this situation arose but it is something that will continue to be one of the concerns with using the ladder as a means to qualify. However, I'm still very happy with how the ladder qualifications have gone so far and think that the pro's have outweighed the cons in using it. My biggest regret is that I didn't do a better job keeping an updated ranking as Shoutcraft does with the ladder qualifications to build some hype. This is something I've never done before so I'll be sure to learn from my mistakes and make things better in the future.

With that being said, only 3 hours left until ladder lock! I know a lot of the players are still hard at laddering! I wish them the best of luck as we find out soon who are going to be the 4 players joining Phog on the show. =]

On February 09 2014 15:10 feardragon wrote:
Ok guys! The final update for the first 5 qualification spots is here! Here are the qualified players:
[IvD] Phog(Z)
[CORE] Believe
[Clarity] rebOrn(P)
[Dust] sWs(P)
[Deimos] Siphonn(Z)

Congrats to all of these players! They all deserve it! I'll be making a more formal post soon about this!

On February 09 2014 15:35 Smurfett3 wrote:

your OP says 4

On February 09 2014 15:35 Smurfett3 wrote:

your OP says 4

On February 09 2014 15:38 TechNoTrance wrote:


Phog won the first qualifier tournament.

On February 09 2014 16:16 SaroVati wrote:
This was an amazing tournament last season, good luck to all the participants qualifying / qualified! Let's hope some cool NA players are featured and we get a sick season-end tournament

On February 19 2014 09:09 TheRealNanMan wrote:
Don't forget guys the second and final qualifier goes live at 7pm EST this Friday(Sign up if you haven't already)!

Also the VOD's from the 1st qualifier are now live on YT!
+ Show Spoiler +

On February 22 2014 12:42 iAmJeffReY wrote:
Kinda silly you don't invite hendralisk to this and make him qual. Watching that last series, it wasn't at all close and seemed like a complete joke of a series.

On February 22 2014 13:10 EJK wrote:

i agree they weren't cut throat games like the ones i played before, to be honest i didn't actually plan on making it to the finals and got kinda nervous I was there. Then I wasn't used to some of his strategies and just got rolled over, shit happens

On February 22 2014 14:41 iAmJeffReY wrote:

henry is just another level than people give him credit for IMO. Dude does well all over the place, just has a nagging habit of fucking LOSING!

Cmon henry/.

On February 23 2014 11:47 feardragon wrote:
In regards to Hendralisk, I view Hendralisk as a player who people might recognize the name of, but maybe don't know too much about unless you follow the local Candian scene. He's been around for a while, but give his skill, he has always seemed to me like a player that gets less attention than maybe he deserves.

In a sense, Hendralisk reminds me of a "Hellokitty" pick from Breaking Out Season 1. A player that had shown results, had a name that was recognized, but that people seemed to not know much about or underestimated.

As for what EJK was saying about Hendralisk being in the MLG tournament, I'd remind people that Siphonn was in it as well. Not to mention, many other players from Breaking Out were actually on the voting, like Bones, JonSnow, SaroVati, etc.

Whenever we received an application that could be seen as an "edge case," it was discussed among a committee formed. While hendralisk is a more well known player than many of the others in Breaking Out, we decided to let him register based on the reasons mentioned above. As for why we didn't invite him, invites are only given to players after the other 6 players have qualified. This is to avoid inviting a player that could otherwise show their capabilities in qualifying.

Hope that answers some of the questions being mentioned. I will say that performance in the qualifiers is definitely one of the things I personally am looking at when deciding who to invite. It's not the only factor, but it's certainly one of them.