AK-47 | Hydroponic (Minimal Wear)

The AK-47 | Hydroponic in Minimal Wear (MW) is the closest an AK gets to factory condition short of Factory New. The float of the AK-47 | Hydroponic here runs from 0.07 to 0.15. Classified rank; the skin belongs to The Rising Sun Collection, and that set has no case. The look depends on the pattern index, so alongside float there is a second choice: how the leaves sit.

What the AK-47 | Hydroponic looks like in Minimal Wear

The point of the finish is the acid-green silhouettes of hemp leaves on a light gray, almost white receiver and dust cover. Valve's description calls the motif bamboo, but it is hemp leaves that lie on the body. The pattern does not push forward: lacquered brown wood with visible grain takes the handguard and stock, and the grip is terracotta. The gas tube, the front sight base and the muzzle are painted bright grass green, as separate parts rather than a flood fill. The magazine stays dark steel with white ribs and carries no artwork.

In Minimal Wear the pale receiver keeps its whiteness through the middle and grays only along the edges. The green metal is touched in spots on the raised parts, not rubbed down to steel. The wood darkens at the corners of the stock, but the lacquer on the flat surfaces is intact. At the lower bound of 0.07 the receiver looks factory-fresh, and at 0.15 the gray edges are already visible in the preview.

Where the AK-47 | Hydroponic came from

Valve drew the AK-47 | Hydroponic itself, and no Steam Workshop submission stands behind this finish. The Rising Sun Collection, which the rifle comes from, came out on May 26, 2015. The set arrived with Operation Bloodhound: in its announcement Valve promised pass owners a coin, a mission journal and profile ranks. In Valve's catalog of finishes the skin is number 456.

What to check before buying

Before paying for the AK-47 | Hydroponic, buyers look at these things:

• the pattern index, which decides how the leaves lie on the right side;


• float inside 0.07 to 0.15: toward the upper bound the receiver edges are already gray;


• a name tag and stickers already on this AK-47 | Hydroponic.

The variance in the artwork is real: leaves lie differently from copy to copy, and after float it is the second factor in price. By float alone, there is no best copy to find inside 0.07 to 0.15.

What the AK-47 | Hydroponic costs in Minimal Wear

With Minimal Wear as the baseline, the other wears look like this:

• Factory New asks about two and a quarter times as much;


• Field-Tested sits about one and a half times below it;


• Well-Worn is about a third cheaper;


• Battle-Scarred is almost half the price.

The biggest gap on the scale lies between Minimal Wear and the cleanest wear. Below, the price falls in smaller steps and not in the order of wear: Well-Worn costs more than Field-Tested.

Among Classified AK-47s in Minimal Wear, the AK-47 | Hydroponic is first by price out of fifteen. The runner-up in the rank, AK-47 | Jet Set, costs about a third as much, and AK-47 | Case Hardened about a sixth as much. The cheap end of the rank, AK-47 | Searing Rage and AK-47 | Phantom Disruptor, falls away by more than two hundred times.

Getting the AK-47 | Hydroponic

The AK-47 | Hydroponic does not turn up in any CS2 case. It can also be obtained by trade-up, which takes ten skins of the rank below from this collection. The collection has only one Classified skin, so the outcome of the trade-up is predictable, while the placement of the leaves comes out random.

StatTrak and Souvenir

No StatTrak version of the AK-47 | Hydroponic was ever released. There were no Souvenir packages for this finish either: those were made only for the tournament map collections. But a Souvenir copy can be assembled by hand. The Souvenir-O-Matic applies gold tournament stickers and a player autograph to a regular skin from your inventory. That is why a few Souvenir copies occasionally surface even where packages never existed.

Stickers and craft on the AK-47 | Hydroponic

There is more free room for a craft on the stock wood and the magazine. The pale receiver is taken up by leaves, and a sticker there argues with the artwork. In Minimal Wear the edges are already touched, so a sticker near the receiver edge would land on faded paint.

Who this wear suits

Buying the AK-47 | Hydroponic in this wear is worth it if one of these fits:

• you want an almost factory look without paying more than double for Factory New;


• a specific pattern matters, since a clean receiver shows the edges of the leaves better than a worn one;


• the AK is going into a CS2 inventory for the long term.

For everyday play in CS2 this wear is excessive: at range the gray receiver edges do not read at all. Against Field-Tested the price is one and a half times higher, paid for the whiteness of the receiver and the intact green metal.