Random Team Generator

A random team generator splits a list of people into teams or groups by chance, in one tap. No more captains picking their friends first, no more ten minutes of negotiation before a match, and no student left standing at the end. Paste the names, choose how many teams you need, and colored team cards appear with everyone already placed.

It works just as well as a random group generator for class projects, workshop tables or quiz nights. The sample list splits 16 people into 4 teams: replace it with your own names and generate as many times as you like.

1. Paste your list, one person per line. A column copied from a spreadsheet works directly.
2. Choose a number of teams, or a number of people per team, from 2 to 50.
3. Optionally turn on skill balancing, tag spreading or captains.
4. Generate. Each name flies to its team card in a short animation.
5. Not happy with the mix? Re-roll for a new draw, then copy, print or save the result as an image.

Choose the team size mode when the size matters more than the number of teams. Pairs work well for doubles, peer review or lab partners; groups of 3 or 4 for class projects, escape-room teams and quiz rounds; two big sides for a five-a-side or basketball pickup game.

Switch to the team count mode when you know how many groups you need, for example six tables at a workshop. Either way, leftover people are spread so sizes stay as even as possible: 17 players split into 4 teams gives one team of 5 and three teams of 4.

Purely random teams can put all the strong players on one side. To avoid that, add a level from 1 to 5 after a name with an asterisk, such as Carlos *5 or Dana *2, and turn on balancing. People are sorted from the highest level to the lowest, with ties shuffled at random, then dealt out in a snake order: team 1, 2, 3, 4, then back 4, 3, 2, 1, and so on.

The snake keeps totals close, because the team that gets the strongest player also gets the weakest of the next round. Each team card shows its total level, so everyone can see the split is fair before the first whistle.

Tags let you spread a category evenly across teams. Add a hashtag after the name, such as Isla #G and Leon #B for girls and boys, #keeper for goalkeepers, or #design and #dev for a hackathon. With tag spreading on, each tag group is dealt to the teams in turn, starting from a team chosen at random, so no team ends up with all the goalkeepers.

The same trick keeps two people apart: give them the same tag and they will land on different teams, as long as there are at least as many teams as people with that tag.

Turn on captains and one person per team is chosen at random to lead it, which ends the usual debate in seconds. Team names can stay simple (Team 1, Team 2…), use colors that match the cards, or be your own, typed in advance. For a sports theme, spin the random football team wheel to give each group a club name, and settle who kicks off with a coin flip.

Copy the teams as plain text to paste into a group chat or an email, export them as a CSV file for a spreadsheet, save an image to share, or print a clean sheet for the gym wall. In class, project the page in full screen so everyone finds their group at once. To start the session, a few icebreaker questions help new groups get talking.

Yes. The list is shuffled with your browser’s cryptographic random generator, using an unbiased shuffle, before anyone is placed, and nothing is decided on our server. Without balancing or tags, who ends up with whom is pure chance. With balancing on, chance still decides who goes where among people of the same level. The fairness explainer covers the method in detail, with a simulator you can run yourself.