The six BlitzVolley bots and career mode

Last updated: 18 August 2026

Six server-controlled opponents populate the solo game. They are not six difficulty settings of the same robot: each has a hand-written strategy, with an assumed strength and an exploitable weakness. Learning to beat each of them means learning a different part of the game.

Career mode

Career chains the six bots in a fixed order. Beating one makes the next playable and grants its reward — a skin or an arena, alternating. Career matches are first-to-11 and have no effect on your ELO: the indicative rating shown next to each bot places its difficulty, it does not rate your account.

The Bots menu lets you freely replay any opponent already reached in the chain, without going back through Career.

Naïf — The Beginner

He follows the ball without guile. When it is on his side he stands just behind it and pushes it back; when it is on yours he returns to mid-court and waits. He predicts nothing, risks nothing and never smashes.

How to beat him: there is nothing particular to do — that is his job. Use him to drill your three touches and your angles, not to win quickly.

Mur — The Wall

He holds the centre of his half and moves as little as possible. He predicts where the ball will land, gets there, and returns it with a standing contact — no run-up, no charge. He never dives and never smashes. His defence is almost impossible to break by force.

How to beat him: through placement, not power. Since he always returns high, soft balls, you have time to build. Alternate short and deep: he repositions correctly but slowly, and a drop shot just behind the net followed by a deep ball catches him out every time.

Kangou — The Jumper

He never stops bouncing: he chains a new jump on every landing. That gives him permanent vertical coverage and an unpredictable rhythm.

How to beat him: play low and fast. In the air he can no longer correct his horizontal position and he comes down on a timer he does not choose. A flat, driven ball played while he is at the peak of a jump is very hard for him to recover.

Pleutre — The Cautious

He computes where the ball will land, sets up behind that point, then drives forward through the contact: a genuine run-up, which gives his returns enough pace to clear the net cleanly. While the ball is on your side he hangs back, defensively.

How to beat him: he plays the predicted landing spot. Anything that breaks the prediction troubles him — heavy spin, balls driven into the side wall, short drop shots. And since he holds back, the net is his weak zone.

Fonceur — The Aggressive

He camps at the net and attacks early. He does not take the time to drop back under a high ball: he jumps and drives into it to smash. That early forward commitment is his whole game.

How to beat him: it is also his weakness, and a blunt one — deep balls sail over him. He is already at the net, committed forward; a ball lofted over his head to the back of his half is very often an outright point. Do not try to fight him at the net, he is better there than you.

Filou — The Trickster

He is the last of the chain, and the only one who deliberately changes plan mid-match. He reads the bounce like Pleutre, but switches roughly every second and a half between two styles: a powerful shot with a run-up, then a soft contact near the net. He varies spin and placement to wrong-foot you.

How to beat him: do not guess, watch. His two modes have visible tells: when he backs off to take his run-up, the ball is coming back fast and deep; when he stays standing near the net, it will drop short. Position on what you see, not on what you expect.

Why play against bots

Beyond Career, the bots serve three purposes. They are available instantly, with no queue, which makes them the only way to warm up. They are perfectly reproducible, so if you want to drill the smash or the drop shot, a bot always does the same thing and you immediately see what your input changed. Finally, they fill the empty seats in tournaments, which lets a bracket start without waiting for eight human players.