A lot of big changes are coming to the next Overwatch League season. 

OWL 2022 will be played on an early version of Overwatch 2, a game that finally announced an upcoming closed beta after years of delay. This means new maps, new game modes, and each team only having five heroes. And that's apparently not the only big change. 

Hero pools will be no longer. 

Hero pools were brought to the Overwatch League to shake up the meta after top teams continued to use the same heroes over and over. But hero pools immediately angered the competitive community. Teams were unable to practice adequately since the off-limit heroes were announced close to the tournament. This meant a lack of strategy as well leading up to the matches. 

Sean Miller and Matt "Mr X" Morello were recently asked about the 2022 schedule, including some hard-hitting questions about hero pools returning. Miller responded that there would be "no hero pools for 2022." 

This was received positively by the Overwatch League community. Many fans felt as though there shouldn't be restrictions and surprise bans when the teams already had to deal with hero reworks and new team compositions. A lack of hero pools allows teams to freely practice and form strategies in the new game.