Pokemon fantasy football: value over replacement

Fantasy football managers do not rank players. They rank the gap between a player and the player who replaces him. That idea — value over replacement — is the cleanest way to read an All 22 Football board, because the game hands you the exact grades a fantasy manager would otherwise be guessing at. Twenty-two jobs, one pool of 1,025 bodies, and a scoring model that tells you precisely what each slot is worth.

Value over replacement, the fantasy lens

The ceiling at a job is the highest grade any Pokémon reaches there. The replacement level is the grade of the twenty-second-best body at that same job, which is roughly what you end up with if you treat the position as an afterthought and pick last. Subtract one from the other and you have the value a real pick can buy.

Two things stand out. First, the offensive line owns the top five spots on this list: no other position group comes close to 17 points of value, because the tackle and guard ceilings sit at 74 while replacement level sits around 56. Second, tight end and the secondary jobs return single digits, which is why a board that spends its first three picks on receivers, tight ends and corners is a board that ends up hunting for blockers in round twelve.

Where the value actually sits

Add up the value over replacement across a position group and you get a draft-capital map. This is the equivalent of an auction budget: if a manager had 266 units to spread across 22 jobs, this is how the market would split them.

One third of the board's value sits in the five line jobs, and that is with a single body — Avalugg at 2.0 m and 505 kg — holding the ceiling at four of them. Ignore that market and the rest of the board has to make up the difference, which is exactly what the season simulator punishes after the midpoint of the schedule.

Positional scarcity, counted

Scarcity is not a feeling, it is a count. The pool has 1,025 bodies, and the jobs that matter are the ones where the number of usable bodies collapses as you climb toward the ceiling.

• Left tackle: 123 bodies are tall enough and heavy enough to be considered (1.6 m or more, 120 kg or more), but only 10 grade 60 or better and just 3 grade 65 or better.
• Defensive tackle: 46 bodies weigh 300 kg or more and 89 clear 200 kg, yet only 13 grade 60 or better. Frames are common; graded frames are not.
• Right edge: one body grades 65 or better, and thirteen clear 60. The thinnest premium job on defense.
• Receiver: the opposite. Seven bodies grade 65 or better at the first receiver job and 24 clear 60, so the wait-and-take-a-bargain strategy actually works here.
• Cornerback: 154 bodies have speed of 100 or better, but none grades above 64, which makes the position deep and capped at the same time.

The scarcity numbers are the reason to draft the trenches first. A receiver market with 24 startable bodies can absorb a slow start; a right edge market with one elite body cannot. If you want the pick-by-pick version of this logic, the snake draft strategy guide turns the counts into an order; the snake draft page covers the format itself.

Why the kicker slot is the cheapest buy

In fantasy football, the kicker is the last name written on the sheet because the position scores so little that the difference between the best kicker and a replacement is negligible. All 22 Football reproduces that logic with pool data, and it is worth understanding why the cheap slot is cheap even though its single-digit value over replacement is not the smallest number on the board.

• The ceiling is the lowest of the 22 jobs. The best kicker in the pool grades 62. Every other job offers at least 64, and the line offers 74, so no realistic kicker pick can outscore the field.
• Nothing above 65 exists. The best kicker, Marshadow at 0.7 m and 22 kg, grades 62. Shuckle grades 61 with 230 defense and 230 sp. defense, and Toxapex grades 58. Because no body clears 65, there is no elite tier to bid against.
• The bodies are useless elsewhere. Marshadow grades 47 at running back and 46 at receiver. Shuckle grades 40 at tackle. Since the kicker slot reads HP and defense in a 3 to 45 kg frame, only one market wants these bodies.
• The pool is enormous. 412 of 1,025 bodies sit in the kicker size window, so a playable kicker is available long after every other job is settled.

Bargain hunting by generation

Slicing the board by generation is the closest thing to a waiver wire. Each filter produces a different market, and — this is the part that surprises managers — the biggest pools are not the richest ones. Depth and quality are separate properties.

Pokemon fantasy football FAQ