Block templates aren't too crazy a concept to wrap your mind around.

All Bitcoin blocks are made up of transactions that were waiting in the mempools to be included in a block, right? When a miner is hashing to try and "find a block," it is using a block template that includes all the transactions that will be included in that block IF they are the one to find it.

Now, where does the miner get that transaction information from? It has to come from a Bitcoin node that has a mempool of transactions that are waiting to be included. Most miners don't connect to their own node to decide which transactions will be included for themselves. They rely on their mining pool to provide them with the block template dictating which transactions will be included.

What is more, many mining pools aren't creating the templates themselves either. They are relying on other pools, particularly Antpool, to create it for them. That means Antpool has an outsized influence over what transactions are permitted to be included in a block.

If you run your own node, you absolutely should be creating your own block templates and not using a pool that requires you to use theirs, especially if you are lottery mining.