Ask the regulars in our StarCraft rooms to name their home turf, and the answer keeps coming back the same: Lost Temple. Blizzard's four-player jungle classic has quietly become the unofficial ladder of the Internet Gaming Zone, and once you have played a few rounds on it you will understand why. Whether you march out as Jim Raynor's Terran marines, swarm the map with Zerg, or warp in a Protoss army, this battlefield rewards the sharp and punishes the sloppy.

Lost Temple drops four commanders onto a sprawling 128-by-128 jungle, one main base tucked into each corner. Every starting position sits up on high ground, lined with mineral patches and a single vespene gas geyser to fuel your war machine. Directly below waits your natural expansion - the second base every serious build order is counting on.

Push toward the middle and you reach the ruins that give the map its name: an ancient temple guarding the contested center, ringed by the extra expansions that decide long macro games.

The heart of Lost Temple's fame is the choke point. Each main connects to the rest of the map by a lone ramp, and that single lane changes everything:

• Terran players wall the ramp with Supply Depots and Barracks, then plug the gap with a bunker.
• Protoss anchor the high ground with photon cannons and let the ramp do half the defending.
• Zerg seed the choke with sunken colonies and burrowed lurkers.

Hold that ramp and you can expand in peace. Lose it and the game is usually already over.

Simple: it is fair. All three races have proven builds here, mirror matches feel clean, and the layout suits both 1v1 duels and 2v2 team brawls. It is easy to learn and impossible to master - exactly the kind of map that keeps our rooms full past midnight. See you at the ramp.