Blizzard's Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos has done more than move a truckload of boxes. It has minted a genuine spectator sport, and the Internet Gaming Zone crowd is glued to every replay.

What separates the ladder elite from the pack is the Hero. Every match now turns on a single champion who gains levels, learns abilities, and hauls a bag of items looted from neutral creep camps. The art of "creeping," clearing wolves, ogres and bandits for experience and gold without losing your Hero, is where games are quietly won or lost in the first five minutes.

The other great equalizer is upkeep. Push past fifty food and your gold income takes a cut; push past eighty and the tax bites hard. The pros answer with lean armies and immaculate micro instead of endless masses. Every unit, every point of lumber, and every mana bar counts.

Signature Heroes define each race at the top level:

• Orc Horde: the Blademaster, whose Wind Walk and Critical Strike make him a surgical assassin, backed by the Far Seer and Tauren Chieftain.
• Human Alliance: Archmage, Mountain King and Paladin.
• Undead Scourge: Death Knight, Lich and Dreadlord.
• Night Elf Sentinels: Demon Hunter, Keeper of the Grove and Priestess of the Moon.

The Battle.net ladder is the proving ground, with LAN reserved for the big stages such as the World Cyber Games. Standard maps like Lost Temple, Turtle Rock, Echo Isles and Gnoll Wood are memorized down to every creep camp, expansion and goblin merchant.

Not every star chases a trophy. The custom game lobbies are exploding with Tower Defense, hero arenas, and a team map called DotA that has a following all its own. With The Frozen Throne expansion on the horizon, the Zone expects the competition to get only fiercer.