We all know what the big deal with skins in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is. If you’ve been following us lately, you may have walked through one of our previous general articles where we talked about what kind of skins can be dropped for free. There, we discussed some interesting things about the quality, ranking and such. And although it was very, very briefly, we mentioned one of the ranking categories available for weapon finish – Gold – and this particular one has to do with today’s article.
If we just not take into account that Contraband level is at the top of the quality ranking because of some interesting story – that we also talked about a week ago or so – then you can say for sure that Gold level is the highest hierarchy in the entire game, at least when it comes to “regular” accessibility and obtainability. Oh, did I just mention that this is a spot reserved only for knives?
That’s right! Even more valuable than a Factory New DragonLore AWP, it can be a knife. A freaking, weirdly painted, brand new knife! Geez, people certainly have some serious issues giving value to things. But jokes aside, these edgy arms can be sold for some sweet money depending on the same factors that affect the rest of the skins. So today we’re going to talk about the different paintings for these melee weapons you can find in a crate, going from some of the cheaper ones to those topping the expensive chart.
Design, Finish, Pattern and more – Things to consider of
So what do you have to know about first? Let’s start by pointing out briefly a selection of ten type of knife to set up the big picture of what’s coming later. From cheapest to most expensive (approximately), we can name Gut (oh sweet pun you’re so subtle), Flip, Shadow Daggers, Falchion, Huntsman, Bowie (yeah, it took its name after late rock star David Bowie), Bayonet, M9 Bayonet, Butterfly and the big one, the Karambit Knife.
All of them rely on things like quality, uniqueness, drop rate, overall design, among others, for raising or lowering their value. But bear in mind that people tend to pay attention especially at two of their characteristics before giving them the high desirability seal of approval: overall design, and animation. In other words, the cooler the knife looks and its animation is, the higher their price will be. To get a clue of what I’m saying, go watch the Gut Knife animation and compare it to the Butterfly. You’ll tell me later 😉
Now, let’s move on to the different skins people hold most desired. These are Marble Fade, Doppler, Crimson Web, Slaughter, Fade, and last but definitely not least, Case Hardened. Probably you might be wondering, what’s the big wow with these skins? Well, aside from the fact that they all look beautiful or cool and their drop rates, they have a particular element most of the community put their eyes on – pattern.
Why? Let me put it in a simple way: the thing with a skin’s pattern is the frequency a specific part of it will appear in a fixed position on the melee weapon. As you can imagine, the less frequent a specific part is prone to appear, the rarer it will be. And this is true for its position, being in the playside of the knife and center-aligned way more desirable than the backside and edged-aligned.
For example, if we take the Crimson Web skin and look at its characteristics, we’ll see that it can drop with a random quantity of webs, being with just one web a commoner skin than with two, three or more. There’s even the possibility to have one or two webs of larger sizes, and its level of rarity is usually set between those that have two and three.
Let’s go with another example: Case Hardened. This one is a bit more difficult because it has to do with the percentage of a certain color appearing in the entirety of the blade. According to the community, the more the blue color is spread throughout the superficies, the rarer and more unique it will be. Based on this, a 20 to 30% blue pattern is way too common in comparison with a higher percentage of this color, whether it appears splashed in the tip or more to the center.
Best Knife and Best Skin with Best Pattern = $$$
We have covered the most important things of both weapons and skins by separated, so it’s only natural that we come to fuse them together in order to answer this question: what’s the best combination? Well, to be honest, it’s a matter of choice, for there are a ton of possible rare and unique outcomes when opening a case.
But again, if we pay attention to people’s taste, then we can say that a Karambit Factory New – Case Hardened is the rarest combination you’ll see out there as of today (and the more blue it has, the better for you), although a M9 Bayonet Crimson Web is also holding dear for a lot of gamers (and its actual value is bouncing between $6000 and $7500). However, doing a quick research, I found that at opskins.com(btw our review), a Karambit Factory New – Doppler “Sapphire” (which is a rare pattern for this particular skin, kinda like the Case Hardened Blue Gem) is on sale at an astounding $60.000, which is A LOT of Benjamins for a virtual weapon.
That last thing I just said is not a lie, you can go and confirm it by yourselves, but that’s what is on sale right now. If we’re going to talk about all-time high prices for a weapon skin ever paid, remember that the first best combination I’ve mentioned was the Karambit Factory New – Case Hardened, right? Well, what if you throw to that mixture a f*ck ton of blue to its playside, leave some to the backside almost located on its center, and to be nice with the poor weapon, give it a #1 Float Value?
Ladies and Gentlemen, you just got yourselves a humble, WHOOPING ASS $100.000+ VIRTUAL COMMODITY!! You read right: MORE THAN ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS!! Do you have any idea of what you can do with that insane amount of bucks? Honestly… Well, this is the Internet, why am I getting surprised anyways?
And that’s it! Thank you for reading us today and if you liked this please share it with your friends by clicking the buttons below. See you in the next article!