Ok, so we know at the very beginning we will be with 2 other villagers. This is the least in the series, as before the least was Wild World with 3.
However, I have a another theory, a bit more logical if we're going based on what the series has done in the past: one starter will be male, and one will be female.
In New Leaf, you always had a combination of 3 male/2 female or 3 female/2 male to start. Part of this was due to personality constraints (you couldn't start with 2 of the same personality nor a Smug/Uchi villager). In New Horizons, we saw Fuchsia, who's an Uchi, as a starter.
In Wild World, however, we were still on the classic 6 personalities with 3 starters. However, the starter combinations were always 2 male/1 female or 2 female/1 male, also with different personalities.
So, with conclusions with what has previously been done, I conclude that we will have 2 starters, 1 male and 1 female, with any of the four possible personalities.
So what does this mean as far as cycling? It means you would have a 1/~250 chance, not a 2/~500 chance, (assuming we end up with around 500 villagers) with getting a specific villager.
This is exponentially worse than New Leaf, in which you had a 5/6 chance of getting the personality you wanted, and then a 1/~60 chance to get the villager you wanted based on the personality. In short, you had ~1/90 chance to get a certain villager. With personality constraints, your chances were much greater to get a specific villager.
In short, cycling for a specific villager won't be worth it. Some people said they may cycle to get 2 villagers they are somewhat favorable or neutral towards, which shouldn't be too hard. But trying to start with your favorite would take hours upon hours to try and achieve.