AWP | Desert Hydra (Battle-Scarred)

The AWP | Desert Hydra in Battle-Scarred (BS) is the AWP whose cream-white barrel and scope carry the heaviest wear. Covert rank, The 2021 Mirage Collection. The skin has no regular case: copies sit in tournament souvenir packages.

What the AWP | Desert Hydra looks like in Battle-Scarred

The receiver is red-orange, with a gold-yellow panel on the side. The hydra's olive-brown body winds over it and the stock: the coils are drawn with shadow, and small turquoise marks are scattered near the paws. The barrel, bolt, scope tube and butt plate are cream-white, with thin coral lines.

Battle-Scarred leaves these pale parts the least cleanness. The barrel and scope tube darken first, and on the red and gold the scuffs lie along the edges of the receiver. The skin's float ends at 0.60, so Battle-Scarred is the band from 0.45 to 0.60, not up to 1.00. It is a tight band, and the lots at either end differ only by the number.

Where the AWP | Desert Hydra came from

The Steam Workshop has nothing to do with the AWP | Desert Hydra: Valve made the artwork. The 2021 Mirage Collection came out with this skin on September 21, 2021, and the skin arrived with the same update. In Valve's catalog it is number 819.

What to check before buying

Before paying for the AWP | Desert Hydra, it is worth checking:

• float: the AWP | Desert Hydra can be bought with a float from 0.45 to 0.60, and the number shows how worn the pale parts are;


• listing type: a Souvenir copy with gold team stickers is priced differently from a regular one;


• a name tag and stickers, if they are already on this AWP | Desert Hydra.

The pattern index changes nothing on the AWP | Desert Hydra.

What the AWP | Desert Hydra costs in Battle-Scarred

The other wears against this one:

• Factory New costs about a quarter more;


• Minimal Wear costs about a tenth more;


• Field-Tested is about a tenth cheaper;


• Well-Worn is a few percent cheaper.

The gaps between wears on this skin are small, and Battle-Scarred costs more than its two neighbors in wear. It takes up 0.15 of the 0.60 scale, a quarter.

Among eighteen Covert AWPs in this wear the skin is fifth from the top: thirteen cost less and four cost more. AWP | The Prince and AWP | Medusa cost almost twice as much, while AWP | Dragon Lore and AWP | Gungnir are on another level. Below come AWP | Oni Taiji, about 2.5 times cheaper, and AWP | CMYK and AWP | Asiimov, more than ten times cheaper.

Getting the AWP | Desert Hydra

The skin has no case, and copies come out of tournament souvenir packages for the Mirage map. The AWP | Desert Hydra also comes from a trade-up: ten skins of the rank below go into the contract. The collection has one Covert skin, so a ten drawn from it always returns that one.

StatTrak and Souvenir

The AWP | Desert Hydra has no StatTrak version. A Souvenir edition exists, and it comes from tournament souvenir packages for the Mirage map.

Stickers and craft on the AWP | Desert Hydra

The cream-white barrel and stock offer more free room than the busy side of the rifle. Dark and red stickers read there, while white and pale yellow ones get lost. In Battle-Scarred the film on the pale parts already covers small stickers by itself, so large ones are used for a craft.

Who this wear suits

Buying this wear of the AWP | Desert Hydra is reasonable if:

• you want a Covert AWP for CS2 that costs less than Minimal Wear and Factory New;


• scuffs on the pale parts do not bother you;


• you take a copy near the lower end of the band, where wear is noticeably smaller.

If you want the lowest price among the five wears, look at Field-Tested: it costs about a tenth less.