AWP | Corticera (Minimal Wear)

The AWP | Corticera in Minimal Wear: the green-and-gold ornament on the stock is still intact, while the receiver edges are already lightening. You can buy it with a float from 0.07 to 0.15. It is a Classified skin, came with the eSports 2014 Summer Collection and is in the eSports 2014 Summer Case. The finish has only three wears, and Minimal Wear (MW) is the middle one.

What the AWP | Corticera looks like in Minimal Wear

The AWP has a deep blue base, and a plant ornament runs over the stock and the rear of the receiver: lime-green stems with gold and turquoise veining. The main element is the interlacing of stems at the butt plate, from which thin shoots head forward toward the handguard. The front half of the rifle is almost clean, the barrel is black, and a blue ring sits at the muzzle.

Leaves and spirals can be made out, and light dots like buds stand on the side of the receiver. In Minimal Wear the background stays even, and the receiver edges and butt plate lighten. The thin gold veins break before the big green patches do, so that is where you look for the difference from a factory copy.

Where the AWP | Corticera came from

The finish has no author: Valve drew the artwork itself, and no Steam Workshop submission stands behind it. The eSports 2014 Summer Collection appeared on July 10, 2014. The finish's number in Valve's catalog is 181. Valve put the same artwork on a pistol too: in the set next to the rifle stands the P2000 | Corticera.

What to check before buying

Listings of the AWP | Corticera differ in these things:

• the float from 0.07 to 0.15: near the lower limit the gold on the edges still gleams;


• the state of the thin veins on the butt of the stock;


• whether stickers and a name tag are on it.

Every copy carries the same pattern. In this grade the band is a narrow 0.07 to 0.15, and copies hardly differ from one another.

What the AWP | Corticera costs in Minimal Wear

The finish's float scale is cut off at both ends: there are no copies cleaner than 0.06 or above 0.30. That is why the rifle has no Well-Worn or Battle-Scarred at all, and Factory New fits into a few hundredths.

The gap to Field-Tested stays within a couple of percent: the two lower grades run level, and choosing between them is a choice by looks, not by price. There is only one noticeable step, and it goes up: Factory New costs almost seven times more.

Among Classified AWPs, the Corticera in Minimal Wear is eighth of fourteen: seven finishes are cheaper, six dearer. Right beside it is AWP | Elite Build, followed by AWP | The End and AWP | Green Energy. The top of the rank is far off: AWP | Silk Tiger costs fifteen times more.

Getting the AWP | Corticera

The first route is the eSports 2014 Summer Case, whose contents include the rifle.

Besides the case, the AWP | Corticera comes from a trade-up of ten skins one step down from the same set. There are four Classified finishes in the collection, so the chance of landing the rifle is one in four.

StatTrak and Souvenir

A StatTrak™ version of the AWP | Corticera exists. No Souvenir packages were issued for this finish, since those were made only for the tournament map collections. A Souvenir copy can still be put together by hand, because the Souvenir-O-Matic applies gold tournament stickers and a player autograph to an ordinary skin from the inventory. So a stray Souvenir copy now and then appears even where no packages ever existed.

Stickers and craft on the AWP | Corticera

The front half of the rifle is free. The ornament sits at the back, so there is room for a sticker on the handguard and on the side near the magazine. Deep blue is an even background, and white and yellow logos hold up on it, while green ones sink into the pattern. In Minimal Wear you pay for whole veins, and a sticker over them is irreversible.

Who this wear suits

Minimal Wear is worth buying if:

• you want a nearly clean ornament, and Factory New costs almost seven times more;


• an early 2014 finish from an esports set matters to you;


• the rifle will go to CS2 matches and the inventory alike.

If price is all you look at, Field-Tested runs level, and there is no saving in it. The difference between the two grades shows on the receiver edges and the butt plate.