CS2 skins explained: Rarity, types & marketplace in 2025

With a current Market Cap of $4.6bn, Counter-Strike’s skin economy has taken on a life of its own to become one of the defining aspects of the game, with skin-based content creators like OhnePixel or Sparkles becoming some of the most-viewed content in the CS2 world.

Over 30M cases are opened weekly, as players look to unbox their favourite skins. But why are CS2 skins worth so much, and what determines their value? 

CS2 skins are cosmetics that change how your guns, knives, and gloves look. There are also Agent skins that change your character model. 

Counter-Strike skins are purely cosmetic, in that they are not designed to change any gameplay aspect of CS, although some players might feel their best using their favourite guns or knives. Despite not having an appreciable effect in-game, CS2 skins are highly sought-after items owing to their rarity and monetary value.

Several variables make up every skin. Each variable directly impacts the value of the rare CS2 skins you will unbox or buy. In a broad sense, the value of a weapon is primarily determined by its rarity coupled with its desirability.

Rarity, called Quality on Steam’s Marketplace, refers to how likely a skin is to be dropped as part of weekly drops, or unboxed/opened in a package. The Tiers of Rarity, from highest to lowest, are as follows:

*Contraband cannot be unboxed or created in any other way. Only existing skins can be traded.

While knives and gloves are classified as Covert, they are roughly four times rarer than Covert guns opened from cases.

Opening collection skins from packages or the Armory Pass can grant you any skin from Consumer Grade to Covert, if there is a Covert as part of the collection, but Knives/Gloves are not part of collections. Cases do not include Consumer or Industrial Grade skins.

Condition, Wear, and Float all refer to the condition of the weapon’s finish. Starting with Factory New and ending with Battle-Scarred, all CS2 weapons with a skin exist on a spectrum of wear from 0 to 1. 

Factory New weapons will have the skin’s design largely intact, with higher ratings having more and more imperfections.

Generally speaking, weapons with less wear are more valuable on the market; however, extremely high float skins can be valuable if they are unusually high in that regard.

Some CS2 skins are ‘Pattern-based’, with each weapon having a Pattern Template ranging from 0-1000. For Pattern-based skins, this number determines which part of the texture’s base image is superimposed onto the gun.

Each theoretical pattern is rare, as there are 1,001 potential patterns, but some are more desirable due to the finish. For example, ‘Blue Gems’ are Case Hardened CS2 skins with an unusual amount of blue as part of the weapon. The best possible patterns for Blue Gems are among the most expensive skins in the game.

Doppler and Gamma Doppler knives have a similar system. Knives can be one of several variations, with the rarest type once again referred to as ‘Gems’ by the CS2 community. 

A Doppler knife can be a Sapphire 1 (1 in 100), Ruby (1 in 100), or Black Pearl (1 in 1000), and a Gamma Doppler can be an Emerald (1 in 100), with the remaining probabilities shared between Phases 1-4 of each knife.

Souvenir weapons are part of package drops linked to Counter-Strike majors. The skins generally feature stickers of two teams contesting a particular match at the tournament; historically, they also included a player’s signature. Souvenir weapons cannot be traded up, so they are often cheaper than their non-Souvenir counterparts.

That rule is reversed when the weapon is already the highest rarity or features stickers from a famous or historical event or match. For example, an AWP Dragon Lore will typically fetch more than $20,000 for the Souvenir version, which can include events dating back to ESL One Cologne 2014. It’s one of the most expensive CS2 skins seen. 

Certain stickers can also be highly sought-after commodities in the Counter-Strike world. The Katowice 2014 Titan (Holo) and iBUYPOWER (Holo) are each worth about $70,000 for a single sticker. As such, the value of guns with such stickers is vastly increased.