The third weekend of matches in the young Overwatch League’s third season approaches. Most teams already played, and some even got two matches in.

The Dallas Fuel (0-2) won’t play again until their road trip to South Korea, which starts on March 7 against the Chengdu Hunters.

That doesn’t mean there haven’t been surprising developments and expectations that were met. There are some telling outcomes already, and even though everything changes with the addition of hero pools on March 5, there’s some analysis that can be done..

Teams that were projected to have strong seasons took care of business, that being the defending champion San Francisco Shock (1-0), Philadelphia Fusion (2-0), New York Excelsior (2-0) and Vancouver Titans (2-0).

Squads were perhaps underestimated too, especially those with unfamiliar faces. And that’s coming from a former pro himself.

“I really want to say the Valiant were a surprise with all their new players,” OWL caster and former Houston Outlaws star Jake “Jake” Lyon told The Dallas Morning News in a phone interview. “They are just looking really great and well-practiced for a rookie squad.”

Jake also didn’t read much into the numbers results, so that may be something others keep in mind when no teams played more than two matches yet. The former damage player liked what he saw from some of the losing teams, too.

That included the Fuel.

“Even the Fuel impressed me despite matches not going the way they were hoping,” Jake said. “I think there are spots on that team that are looking promising, especially (Jang “Decay” Gui-un), who was sharp. That’s another team that, with time, could be finding good results as well.”

A full first look at the league is far from complete, though. There are six teams that haven’t played yet: Chengdu, Hangzhou, Atlanta, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Seoul.

Atlanta won’t make its season debut until Feb. 29, and the rest will trickle in starting March 7.

The teams that don’t play until the fifth week of the season, which includes the Fuel’s next opponent, the Hunters, will play every match of their season with hero pools in the game. That may not be much of an advantage considering every team finds out about the first four hero bans at the same time. However, those teams don’t have to focus on practicing for the matches scheduled before the introduction of a strategy-changing rule. They can start their composition building and game plans now.

That may only be handy for the first week of hero pools. After that, it comes down to something more concrete.

Jake said that, ultimately, it’s not going to be about the time available. Taking advantage of hero pools still comes down to personnel.

“It’s kind of a question of your roster,” Jake said. “Do you have the roster to field those other strategies or are you unprepared because you are so focused on plan a and making that plan work? I think that’s a tough call because you have to split your practice time as a team and if anything it will be a major referendum on coaching staff this year.”

Teams that can be the most unpredictable, prepared and flexible will thrive. That may bring life to gameplay.

Wackiness can return to the OWL with hero pools. That’s probably an overwhelming positive for viewers. Repetitive compositions like the three tank and three support meta got just as old for the players, too.

Considering there were already some shocking hero selections in the first two weeks without the hero pools, OWL may showcase chaos in its gameplay with the introduction of its forced unpredictability.

Jake got to see it when his former main hero, Junkrat, was played by Kim “DoHa” Dongha against the San Francisco Shock on Feb. 9. Junkrat was seldom selected at the professional level but DoHa used it to counter the Shock’s Symmetra pick and fully hold them to secure the Fuel’s map-win over the defending champs.

“One of the best utilities of Junkrat is against the Symmetra,” Jake said. “She forces her team to group up in one spot, which is exactly what you don’t want to do against Junkrat. The Fuel proved that (making Junkrat work) is still possible and you still want that in that toolkit.”

The gaming world gets to see what else is possible in the new-look OWL. But there’ still a few weeks of matches to go before it all changes.