AK-47 | Neon Rider (Minimal Wear)

The AK-47 | Neon Rider in Minimal Wear (MW) is a Covert AK with a float from 0.07 to 0.15, which makes it the second cleanest of the five wears. The skin drops from the Horizon Case and belongs to The Horizon Collection. You can buy the AK-47 | Neon Rider in any of the five wears, from Factory New to Battle-Scarred.

What the AK-47 | Neon Rider looks like in Minimal Wear

Valve's description puts a deadly biker in the foreground and mixed neon patterns behind him. The wear band of the AK-47 | Neon Rider in this grade runs from 0.07 to 0.15.

In the Workshop submission the author writes separately that he reworked the wear pattern and the wear value. The wear of any given copy is fixed at the drop and does not change.

Where the AK-47 | Neon Rider came from

Puffin is listed as the designer of the finish. The Steam Workshop submission "AK-47 | Neon Rider IV (Director's Cut)" was posted by Shin Rigman on May 9, 2018. It is a version reworked after community feedback. The author added patterns along the top of the barrel and made a closed-helmet variant, closer to the classic Neon Rider. He also added normal maps so the surface reads more interestingly, and adjusted the unwrap in places.

The author called the piece a collaboration with the Workshop artist KC-Sir. The AK-47 | Neon Rider appeared on August 1, 2018, when The Horizon Collection was added to the game. Its number in Valve's catalog is 707.

What to check before buying

Before paying for the AK-47 | Neon Rider, three things are worth checking:

• the float: in this wear it is a tight 0.07 to 0.15 band, where the difference between listings is hard to catch;


• the applied name tag and stickers, which stay with the listing on the AK-47 | Neon Rider;


• StatTrak: the skin has a counter version, and it is a separate listing from the regular one.

The pattern on the AK-47 | Neon Rider is not played out, and every copy is identical.

What the AK-47 | Neon Rider costs in Minimal Wear

The other wears, set against this one:

• Factory New is dearer by 2.56 times;


• Field-Tested is cheaper by 1.62 times;


• Well-Worn is cheaper by 1.34 times;


• Battle-Scarred is cheaper by 1.68 times.

The order by price is not strictly descending here: Well-Worn costs more than Field-Tested.

Among Covert AKs in this wear there are three close neighbors. One costs about a quarter more and another slightly less, while AK-47 | Asiimov is cheaper by about a quarter.

Getting the AK-47 | Neon Rider

The skin drops from the Horizon Case. A trade-up also yields the AK-47 | Neon Rider: it takes ten Classified skins from the collection. The collection has two Covert skins, and the second is Desert Eagle | Code Red, so the odds on the AK are one in two.

There is a third route, a craft: five Covert skins can be traded for a rare special item. The Horizon list holds the Navaja Knife, Stiletto Knife, Talon Knife and Ursus Knife.

StatTrak and Souvenir

The AK-47 | Neon Rider has a StatTrak version. No souvenir packages were released for this finish: those were made only for tournament map collections. A souvenir copy can still be built by hand, though. The Souvenir-O-Matic puts gold tournament stickers and a player autograph on an ordinary skin from the inventory. That is why the odd souvenir copy turns up even where no packages ever existed.

Stickers and craft on the AK-47 | Neon Rider

The skin's background is made of mixed neon patterns, and a small sticker competes with the artwork there. The biker figure in the foreground is better left uncovered.

Who this wear suits

Buying the AK-47 | Neon Rider in this wear is worthwhile if:

• you want an AK for CS2 in the Horizon artwork, and paying 2.56 times more for Factory New is not justified;


• the artwork matters more than zero wear, and a float of 0.07 to 0.15 is still close to the clean wear;


• you want an AK a little more worn than Factory New, and the next wear down, Field-Tested, is cheaper by 1.62 times.