Guide · best lineups
The best lineups in the All 22 Pokémon Football Game
The strongest 22 for every challenge. These lineups are not copied from anywhere — they are searched. For each pool the optimizer fills all 22 slots, then keeps trying single swaps, pair swaps and three-way rotations until nothing improves, across every combination of 3-4 and 4-3 fronts and fullback and slot offenses. The best result wins.
Treat them as a benchmark for your own team, not a script: the 17–0 Challenge rolls decide who you can actually pick. The four weakest fits on each team are flagged, because those are the players the scoring model punishes twice.
How the game splits a team
Every team is 11 on offense and 11 on defense. Two choices change exactly three jobs — nothing else moves.
3-4 defense
3-4Three down linemen and four linebackers. One massive nose tackle holds the middle while the two inside linebackers clean up behind him.
Nose tackle · two inside linebackers
4-3 defense
4-3Four down linemen and three linebackers. The nose tackle becomes a second defensive tackle, and one inside linebacker becomes the middle linebacker.
Two defensive tackles · middle linebacker
Fullback offense
FBTwo receivers, a tight end and a lead-blocking fullback ahead of the halfback. Built for running the ball.
Fullback
Slot offense
SLOTThe fullback comes off the field for a third receiver lined up inside. More speed, less muscle.
Slot receiver
Original 150, no legendaries
The builder's default pool
Fullback offense
Ringed players are the four weakest fits on the team — the ones the Team Score punishes twice.
The cleanest test of the maths: no legendaries to paper over a weak spot, so the optimizer has to find value in ordinary Pokémon.
Original 151, legendaries allowed
The 151 Challenge
Fullback offense
Ringed players are the four weakest fits on the team — the ones the Team Score punishes twice.
Add the birds, Mewtwo and Mew and the ceiling jumps: the quarterback and both safety slots become legendary almost immediately.
Retro, up to three legendaries
Generations 1–4
Fullback offense
Ringed players are the four weakest fits on the team — the ones the Team Score punishes twice.
Kanto through Sinnoh, on its own gentler score scale, because a pool that stops at Gen 4 has lower stats than the full roster.
The wild, up to three legendaries
All 1,025 Pokémon
Fullback offense
Ringed players are the four weakest fits on the team — the ones the Team Score punishes twice.
Every Pokémon in the game under the challenge's three-legendary cap. This is the highest a legal team can go.
Why these teams look the way they do
The raw grade is our exact objective — the share-weighted average of the 22 fits, with the four weakest averaged back in at 18%. The projected Team Score is a transparent approximation of the game's hidden 0–1000 curve, so treat it as a direction rather than a promise.
- The quarterback takes the best available arm. At 24% of the offense, an elite Sp. Atk/Sp. Def Pokémon at that spot lifts the whole team more than any single upgrade anywhere else.
- Then the line gets filled with boulders. Five slots, no Speed requirement, and 37% of the offense between them. The optimizer grabs every heavy Rock and Steel type it can before it looks at skill positions again.
- Cornerback and defensive end come next. 11% each, the most valuable defensive jobs, so the fastest and hardest-hitting leftovers go there.
- Safeties and fullback absorb the leftovers. The cheapest spots on the field, worth hiding a lesser athlete in — as long as it is not so weak that it lands among the four worst fits.