AK-47 | The Empress (Minimal Wear)

The AK-47 | The Empress in Minimal Wear (MW): gold and red-and-blue panels with light signs of wear. Float values for this wear fall between 0.07 and 0.15. It is ranked Covert, and the rifle can be found in the Spectrum 2 Case. In CS2 this skin is sold in every one of the five wears.

What the AK-47 | The Empress looks like in Minimal Wear

The rifle reads as a collage built after a tarot card: red, dark blue and gold laid out in panels. The dark blue areas are the receiver, the stock and the top of the handguard. The red ones are the bottom of the handguard, the gas tube and the magazine. There is plenty of gold: the checkerboard on the cover, the filigree, the crown on the gas tube, the woman's figure on the receiver, the trigger guard and the trigger.

The magazine carries cream stars and a strip of dark diamonds. In Minimal Wear the gold on the ribs and the trigger guard starts to go matte. The red and blue at the stock corners and the handguard edge lighten only slightly. The large flat areas stay untouched.

Where the AK-47 | The Empress came from

The finish was created as part of a tarot series. In the project description the author writes that each weapon in it is a card, one of the Major Arcana, with its own illustration and a touch of the occult. The first series has six cards, and The Empress, number III, went to the AK-47. The designer is Zaphk, and the skin was released in September 2017.

What to check before buying

Before paying for this rifle, it is worth checking:

• float: the band 0.07 to 0.15 takes 8% of the skin's scale;


• the gold on the receiver edge and the engraving across it;


• the stickers and name tag the rifle inherits from a previous owner.

Choosing this AK by pattern is not an option, as it is the same on every listing. You can take it here almost blind, since the band from 0.07 to 0.15 is tight.

What the AK-47 | The Empress costs in Minimal Wear

Against Minimal Wear, the other wears look like this:

• Factory New costs 2.09 times more;


• Field-Tested is level, the gap being under three percent;


• Well-Worn is cheaper by a factor of 1.08;


• Battle-Scarred is cheaper by a factor of 1.09.

The three wears from Minimal Wear down to Battle-Scarred differ by a few percent, while the factory one costs twice as much. Among Covert AK-47 skins this one takes the middle: ten are cheaper and thirteen are pricier. The nearest above are AK-47 | Jaguar and AK-47 | Neon Revolution, by a tenth, and AK-47 | Bloodsport, by a quarter. Below stand AK-47 | The Oligarch and AK-47 | Wasteland Rebel.

Getting the AK-47 | The Empress

The rifle drops from the Spectrum 2 Case, and no other case carries this finish.

A trade-up gets it too: ten skins one rank lower, all from one collection. Two Covert skins sit in the collection, so the odds come to one in two. Five of the collection's Covert skins can also go into a knife craft.

StatTrak and Souvenir

The AK-47 | The Empress comes in a StatTrak version. No Souvenir packages were issued for this finish. You can still assemble a Souvenir copy yourself through the Souvenir-O-Matic: gold tournament stickers and a player autograph are applied to an ordinary skin from your inventory.

Stickers and craft on the AK-47 | The Empress

The panel layout gives a sticker several borders it cannot cross without breaking the composition. The stock is the most even area: dark blue, with gold specks. Gold on the magazine and the side overrides colored stickers, so small solid-color marks stand out more there.

Who this wear suits

Buying the AK-47 | The Empress in Minimal Wear makes sense when:

• you want gold shine on the raised parts with almost no wear, without paying double for Factory New;


• choosing by float is not needed, since within a tight band the listings are alike;


• the skin is for CS2, where the difference at the edges stays a small matter.