AWP | Man-o'-war (Minimal Wear)

AWP | Man-o'-war in Minimal Wear (MW) is the upper of the only two wears in which this finish exists at all. The float assigned to this wear is 0.10 to 0.15. Covert rank; the AWP belongs to the Chroma Collection and drops from the Chroma Case.

What the AWP | Man-o'-war looks like in Minimal Wear

Valve puts the finish this way: a blue metallic base with gold swirls and accents laid over it by hand. The barrel and scope stay black. All of the paint is gathered on the receiver and the front of the stock: gold curls across a dark blue field, and the rear of the stock is black.

The float scale of AWP | Man-o'-war is cut off on both sides and runs only from 0.10 to 0.20. That is why the finish has no Factory New and nothing below the two wears it does have, Minimal Wear and Field-Tested. Minimal Wear takes the first half of that stretch.

What to check before buying

What separates one AWP | Man-o'-war listing from another comes down to this:

• the float: every copy lies on a stretch 0.05 long, so the number confirms the wear more than it picks between copies;


• the gold swirls on the edges of the receiver and on the cheek of the stock, where signs of wear show first;


• the stickers and name tag already on that particular AWP | Man-o'-war.

The band from 0.10 to 0.15 takes half of the finish's own scale: 0.05 of 0.10. In this wear it is a narrow band, and copies barely differ from one another.

What the AWP | Man-o'-war costs in Minimal Wear

The finish has only two wears, so Minimal Wear has nothing to be compared with except its neighbor:

• Field-Tested costs a few percent more.

The usual rule that newer means dearer does not hold here. Both bands are the same width, half of the scale each, and the prices almost coincide.

On price the finish lands in the middle of the Covert AWP row. AWP | LongDog sits a little above it, AWP | Containment Breach is almost level, and AWP | Queen's Gambit, AWP | Wildfire and AWP | Printstream are cheaper.

Getting the AWP | Man-o'-war

The skin drops from the Chroma Case. A trade-up also builds it: ten skins of the rank below from the collection go in. The collection holds two Covert skins, so the odds of the trade-up are one in two.

StatTrak and Souvenir

Stickers and craft on the AWP | Man-o'-war

There is a StatTrak version of AWP | Man-o'-war. Souvenir packages were never issued for this finish. A souvenir copy can still be built by hand, because the Souvenir-O-Matic hangs gold tournament stickers and a player autograph on an ordinary skin.

Gold and blue give two ready lines for a craft: gold and yellow stickers continue the swirls, while blue and white ones echo the background. The black barrel and the black rear of the stock leave room for dark and silver stickers.

Stickers on the stock and the receiver end up beside the swirls, because the paint is gathered there. The artwork of the finish stays the main thing, so choose stickers that are large and not too busy.

Who this wear suits

Minimal Wear is a sensible choice for an AWP | Man-o'-war if:

• you want a Chroma Case finish with gold swirls and the least wear it can have;


• the price gap to Field-Tested does not matter to you, since it stays within a few percent;


• the AWP goes into CS2 matches and you want a neutral black-and-gold look.

If you need a better condition than this band, the finish does not have one: Factory New does not exist for AWP | Man-o'-war.