AK-47 | Slate (Field-Tested)

Field-Tested (FT) is the stretch of the AK-47 | Slate scale where wear is already visible but the look is still intact, and the price sits well below Factory New. The float runs from 0.15 to 0.38. It is a Restricted skin that drops from the Snakebite Case, and The Snakebite Collection dates from May 4, 2021.

What the AK-47 | Slate looks like in Field-Tested

Valve itself describes the finish as black on black over slate-black, and that is no figure of speech: there are no other colors in it. The design rests on the difference between matte and glossy areas, visible only at an angle. In FT a third texture joins in: worn paint on the edges of the receiver and on the magazine, with light metal showing through. This contrast of light against black is what sets FT apart from the clean wears most of all.

What to check before buying

Only two things matter:

• float: on a black base every worn edge shows, and by 0.38 there are many of them;


• a name tag and stickers already applied.

The AK-47 | Slate carries the same design on every copy, and there are no rare examples.

The lower part of the stretch from 0.15 to 0.38 gives a nearly fresh body, and the upper part a clearly worn one. The wear name on the label stays the same.

What the AK-47 | Slate costs in Field-Tested

The other wears against this one:

• Factory New costs roughly three and a half times as much;


• Minimal Wear costs roughly one and a half times as much;


• Well-Worn costs about a seventh less;


• Battle-Scarred costs about an eighth less.

The ladder is steep only at the top: Factory New is three and a half times higher, while downward the price barely drops. The reason lies in the base itself. On a black body worn edges spoil the look more than scuffs do on a colored one, so people readily pay extra for clean copies.

Getting the AK-47 | Slate

The AK-47 | Slate drops from the Snakebite Case and belongs to its collection.

The Slate also comes out of a contract fed with ten skins of the rank below. The inputs include CZ75-Auto | Circaetus, Glock-18 | Clear Polymer, Nova | Windblown and several more Mil-Spec skins. If you fill the batch from this collection, which has five Restricted skins, the chance of landing on this AK is one in five. Getting the AK-47 | Slate from a trade-up is possible, and how clean it comes out depends on the skins put in.

The Slate goes into trade-ups itself as well. Ten Restricted skins of the set give one Classified skin: Galil AR | Chromatic Aberration, MP9 | Food Chain or XM1014 | XOXO. The Slate is not the cheapest entry for that contract, so other Restricted skins of the set are more often the ones taken apart.

StatTrak and Souvenir

The AK-47 | Slate has a StatTrak version. Souvenir copies of this finish turn up as well, although no packages were ever released for it: those were made only for tournament map collections. Such copies are built through the Souvenir-O-Matic, which applies gold tournament stickers and a player autograph to an ordinary skin from the inventory.

Stickers and craft on the AK-47 | Slate

A black body is the most convenient base for stickers in the whole game: any color reads on it, and a sticker has nothing to argue with. Bright stickers look especially contrasty, and foil and holographic ones look pricier on matte black than on busy skins. The design gets in the way nowhere, so the Slate suits an expensive build in CS2 well.

Who this wear suits

Buying the AK-47 | Slate here makes sense if:

• you need a black base for a craft in CS2 and a perfect float is not required;


• worn edges are fine with you, since in play they barely read;


• choosing by float within the wear matters to you.

Wear shows most on black, and near the upper limit of the band there is already a lot of light metal on the edges. A level body starts closer to 0.15.