AK-47 | The Empress (Battle-Scarred)

Battle-Scarred (BS) on the AK-47 | The Empress is the far end of the wear scale, where the gold finish is rubbed down the most. The wear spans floats from 0.45 to 1.00. It is ranked Covert, and the rifle belongs to the Spectrum 2 Collection. The skin was released for CS2 in each of the five wears.

What the AK-47 | The Empress looks like in Battle-Scarred

The artwork is assembled from panels, like cards in a deck. The handguard is split in two: a dark blue upper cover with an uneven gold checkerboard, and a red lower half finely filigreed in gold. A gold crown sits on the gas tube, and a gold female figure and rivets on the receiver. The magazine is red with cream stars and a strip of dark diamonds, and the stock is dark blue with gold specks.

Under the checkerboard lies a separate cream-and-gold field carrying four shields, each with its own sign: crown, cross, spade, and a circle with a cross beneath it. Gold on the raised parts goes matte first: the receiver edge, the trigger guard, the magazine ribs. In Battle-Scarred the red and blue lighten at the stock corners and the handguard edge, while the figure on the flat side stays readable.

Where the AK-47 | The Empress came from

The designer of the finish is Zaphk. In the Steam Workshop the submission was titled "AK 47 | The Empress" and went up on April 25, 2017 under the name Oni. Valve writes that the rifle is painted after the Empress tarot card, and the item's caption says that wealth comes in different kinds.

The Spectrum 2 Collection was added to the game in September 2017, and the skin arrived with the same update. Its number in Valve's catalog is 675.

What to check before buying

In a listing for this rifle, these parameters get checked:

• float: the band 0.45 to 1.00 takes 55% of the skin's scale;


• the state of the gold on the receiver edge and the magazine ribs;


• the stickers and name tag this copy already wears.

Choosing by pattern does not exist here as such, because every copy is painted the same way. For this skin the float number matters more than the label, since the band 0.45 to 1.00 holds different looks.

What the AK-47 | The Empress costs in Battle-Scarred

Against Battle-Scarred, the other wears look like this:

• Factory New costs 2.28 times more;


• Minimal Wear costs 1.09 times more;


• Field-Tested costs 1.07 times more;


• Well-Worn costs almost the same, with a difference under three percent.

The one notable step is to the factory wear. Among Covert AK-47 skins in Battle-Scarred this one is seventh by price out of twenty-three: six are pricier and sixteen cheaper. Above stand AK-47 | Neon Revolution and AK-47 | Vulcan, by a tenth or less. Below come AK-47 | Fuel Injector, AK-47 | AUTOEXEC and AK-47 | Jaguar. The cheapest in the row remains AK-47 | Aphrodite.

Getting the AK-47 | The Empress

The skin drops from the Spectrum 2 Case, and no other case carries it.

To trade up for this rifle, you need ten skins one rank lower from the same set. The collection has only two Covert skins, so the chance of the right one is one in two.

StatTrak and Souvenir

A StatTrak version of the AK-47 | The Empress exists. Souvenir packages were not issued for this finish. A Souvenir copy can be built by hand, though: the Souvenir-O-Matic adds gold tournament stickers and a player autograph to a regular skin.

Stickers and craft on the AK-47 | The Empress

Free spots are few: the artwork is broken into panels, and a sticker across a seam wrecks the composition. The stock with the gold specks is the calmest. On the red magazine, light and black stickers read better than colored ones, and on worn gold small marks get lost.

Who this wear suits

Buying the AK-47 | The Empress in Battle-Scarred makes sense if:

• you want a story-driven AK with a tarot composition at the price of the lowest wear;


• worn gold on the raised parts does not bother you, and paying more than double for Factory New is pointless;


• the skin is for CS2, where the condition of the edges does not affect play.