When Blizzard announced StarCraft 2 in South Korea, a stadium full of fans went absolutely nuts. It was like being at a rock concert or something.

A big part of why StarCraft got so huge over there was all the televised matches -- that's right, StarCraft on TV. They literally have channels devoted to the game in Korea.

Razer Gaming Hardware -- probably best known for making high-quality "gaming mats" (mouse pads) -- has decided to sponsor a North American league that just kicked things into high-gear recently. The new league is called Team Liquid StarLeague. The Team Liquid website has been around for a while, following pro-gamer StarCraft news, but this league they started only had their first match the other week.  The league is dominated by StarCraft gurus -- but if you think you know your stuff, its membership is open to anyone that is up for the challenge. The prize for their first  tournament? $10,000 bucks. Not bad at all.

Razer has setup a spin-off site devoted to the StarLeague, and from that website, tourney ladders and weekly podcasts of TSL matches are aired. The matches air on the weekend.

I watched my first match last Sunday and I was hooked. I ended up watching two hours of matches. And no, it's not because I'm a StarCraft freak -- the matches just were really interesting and fun to watch. What really makes them worth watching is not only the skills of the players, but of the commentators as well. The two commentators for this match below are two dudes named Chill and Artosis. They did a great job -- when one of  them start talking about arcane Zerg rushing builds, or something unexpected happens and one of the announcers goes nuts, it makes watching an entire match worthwhile.

This match below was pretty entertaining. It was between Mondragon (Zerg) and Dreiven (Protoss). Dreiven was definitely the underdog in this match up -- Mondragon has a very strong win/loss ratio. When playing as Zerg against Protoss, Mondragon's record is 57-18. But it turned out to be a good match, check it out:

A interview came out today with Dreiven about this match. When asked how prepared for the match, Dreiven said he "didn't play much, watched replays of mondragon and played a few games with ret on wuthering hights. I actually came back from BBQ + beers an hour before the game! Maybe that's my strenght?" Whatever it was, something worked out for him in the match.

Update: And now an interview with Mondragon popped up over here. You can also check out the second Mondragon vs. Dreiven match in our videos section.