A beloved aspect of Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) is the wide variety of weapon finishes. Commonly referred to as a weapon skin, these finishes allow players to express their style through decorative textures. First introduced in the Arms Deal update in 2013, weapon skins are a purely cosmetic feature. They do not offer any gameplay advantages besides looking stylish while hitting those one-taps!

Since their release, weapons skins have inspired a thriving and intricate community of traders and collectors. Weapon skins with high rarity and quality can be worth thousands of dollars! What’s more, some collectors have grown their CSGO inventory to include some of the most sought after skins in the game. Our weapon quality guide details everything you need to know about how to acquire skins in-game, skin grade, skin quality, and more!

Acquiring CS2 skins

Here, we’ll go over how players acquire weapon skins. There are trade-offs to every method, and which route you choose to follow depends on your goals.

• Earn skins through weekly reward packages

Playing on the official servers gives you experience and once you've gained enough you'll get a reward box that includes skins. You can repeat this every week to get more skins!

• “Uncrate” skins by opening weapon and promotional containers

Weapon cases give a player a chance to receive a weapon. Players need to have a matching key to open weapon cases, purchasable in-game. Each case holds weapons from a specific weapons collection.

• Trade via third-party sites or the Steam Market

Trading for skins through the Steam Market is the safest method. Always make sure to do your research before you trade through a third-party site.

CS2 Skin Collections

Except for knife skins, weapons are organized by their collection. An item’s rarity can be affected by its collection. For example, weapons from the Souvenir Cobblestone Collection have a high rarity. This is because items in that package can only be acquired by playing the map during the Major, and Cobblestone is no longer in the map rotation.

If you’re in the beginning stages of collecting, it’s worth looking into weapons from rare collections. Be wary though, the skins can be pricey!

CS2 Skin Grades

Weapon skins are graded based on their rarity and value. Below are the skin quality grades arranged from most common to least common:

• White (common) - Consumer Grade, Base Grade
• Baby Blue (uncommon) - Industrial Grade
• Navy Blue (rare) - Mil-Spec, High Grade
• Purple (Mythical) - Restricted, Remarkable
• Magenta (Legendary) - Classified, Exotic
• Red (Ancient) - Covert, Extraordinary
• Gold (Exceedingly Rare) *- Rare Special (★), Knife, Gloves
• Rose Gold (Immortal) *- Contraband (discontinued)

Note: Items with the asterisk (*) do not drop randomly in-game after completing a match in a Valve Secured server.

CS2 Skin Quality

When viewing a weapon skin in the Steam Market or in-game inventory you’ll notice that they have a colored border around their preview icon. This color denotes their quality and in-line with the following categories:

• General skins - White border
• Rare Special (★) - Purple border. This includes gloves and knives.
• StatTrak™ - Orange border unless they are also a rare special item. These items track the number of kills secured with that weapon.
• Souvenir - Yellow border
• Genuine weapons - Dark green border. This is currently only available with the P250 | X-Ray.
• Stock weapons - Dark brown border
  • Stock weapons are not tradable or marketable and this color coding is only typically used for sorting.

Exceedingly rare items contain a star in their name.

StatTrak™ Weapons

Also released in the Arms Deal update are StatTrak™ weapons. They can only be found by opening weapon cases and do not drop randomly in-game. StatTrak™ can be found on any gun or knife. However, there are no StatTrak™ variants of vanilla weapons, but are found on vanilla knives (not including the default knife).

StatTrak™ weapons have an orange LED display on the gun that tracks the number of kills made on the weapon by the owner. Similarly, StatTrak™ knives have confirmed kills etched into the blade.

As of 2015, StatTrak™ skins can be used in a Trade Up Contract, but can only be traded up with other StatTrak™ weapons.

CS2 Weapons Float

A weapon’s float refers to the overall appearance and skin quality. Upon being uncrated, dropped, or received from a Trade Up Contract, a skin float is randomly chosen for the weapon. The rarity of the item’s float is based on a bell curve, low float Factory New and high float Battle-Scarred items are the rarest.

The float scale ranges from 0-1. The closer an item’s float is to 1 the more scratched the item appears. Below are the CS2 weapon floats arranged from lowest float (least damaged) to highest float (most damaged).

1. Factory New - 0.00-0.07
2. Minimal Wear - 0.07-0.15
3. Field-Tested - 0.15-0.38
4. Well-Worn - 0.38 -0.45
5. Battle-Scarred - 0.45 - 1.00

Once a weapon has been assigned a float value it does not become more worn over-time. The weapon will remain the same float no matter how often it’s used or traded.

CS2 Skin Pattern

There are some CS2 skins that can look different depending on the texture offset. For example, weapons that are case hardened will differ, visually, depending on the weapon’s “seed.”

• Hydroponic “420” seed
• Doppler “Ruby” seed: item contains a lot of red tones
• Doppler “Sapphire” seed: item contains a lot of blue tones
• Doppler “Black Pearl” seed: items contain a lot of purple tones
• Case Hardened “Blue Gem” seed: item contains a lot of blue tones
• Case Hardened “Yellow Gem” seed: item contains a lot of yellow tones
• Case Hardened “Emerald” seed: item contains a lot of green tones or a green handle

Now that you have a good foundation of weapon skin quality, you’re ready to start collecting and trading! Always be sure to trade through reputable websites. Also, be on the lookout for scam traders who will offer you rare items through Steam and Discord.

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