AWP | Oni Taiji (Minimal Wear)

In Minimal Wear (MW) the AWP | Oni Taiji ranks third in price among the five wears, with only Factory New and Battle-Scarred above it. The skin is Covert and belongs to The Operation Hydra Collection. Float values in this wear run from 0.07 to 0.15.

What the AWP | Oni Taiji looks like in Minimal Wear

Dark violet covers the barrel and the scope tube, and the scope wears orange rings. The graphics sit at the back end of the rifle: a pale mask on the receiver and a red demon face on the stock. Red, orange and violet splashes surround them, and the forend is gray-black.

Valve states the subject plainly: hand-painted artwork with samurai and Oni demons. The 0.07 to 0.15 band takes up 16% of this finish's scale, because the float ceiling here is 0.50. Inside 0.07 to 0.15 there is no best copy to hunt for on the AWP | Oni Taiji.

Where the AWP | Oni Taiji came from

The skin arrived together with the Operation Hydra Case. In Valve's note on the launch of the operation, the case is called new, listed alongside the 2v2 and 5v5 modes, community maps and the operation coin.

What to check before buying

Listings of the AWP | Oni Taiji are compared on:

• the float: the band is short, so the number only refines the label;


• the mask on the receiver and the demon face on the stock, where wear shows before it does on the dark barrel;


• what the previous owner left on the AWP | Oni Taiji: stickers and a name tag.

The artwork does not vary on the AWP | Oni Taiji, so pattern plays no part in the choice.

What the AWP | Oni Taiji costs in Minimal Wear

Relative to Minimal Wear, the other wears stand like this:

• Factory New costs 1.69 times as much as Minimal Wear;


• Battle-Scarred costs 1.35 times as much as Minimal Wear;


• Minimal Wear costs 1.14 times as much as Well-Worn;


• Minimal Wear costs 1.32 times as much as Field-Tested.

The price order breaks down at the low end: Battle-Scarred costs more than its three neighbors in wear. Its band is 0.45 to 0.50, a tenth of the scale.

Among twenty Covert AWP skins in Minimal Wear, this one costs more than twelve. AWP | CMYK is about a third cheaper, AWP | Sovereign Flame costs nearly half as much, and AWP | LongDog costs less than half. At the top stand AWP | Medusa, AWP | Dragon Lore and AWP | Gungnir, at ten to thirty-five times the price.

Getting the AWP | Oni Taiji

The skin sits in the Operation Hydra Case. A contract into the AWP | Oni Taiji takes ten skins of the rank below, all from one collection. In Hydra these are Dual Berettas | Cobra Strike, Galil AR | Sugar Rush and M4A4 | Hellfire. The chance of getting the Covert skin you want is one in two.

From there, Covert skins go on into the glove craft, which has six models.

StatTrak and Souvenir

The AWP | Oni Taiji has a StatTrak version. Valve issued no Souvenir packages for this finish. A Souvenir copy can still be built by hand, because the Souvenir-O-Matic puts gold tournament stickers and a player autograph on an ordinary skin.

Stickers and craft on the AWP | Oni Taiji

Only the violet barrel and the front section are free, since the painting takes up the rest. A sticker on the receiver will cover the mask, and on the stock the demon face. Cool-colored and white stickers pair well with the violet barrel, while red and orange ones get lost in the artwork.

Who this wear suits

The AWP | Oni Taiji in Minimal Wear suits these goals:

• an AWP with samurai and demons for CS2, without the 1.7 times surcharge for the top of the scale;


• a wear cleaner than Field-Tested when Factory New is out of budget;


• no need to choose between copies by looks inside the band.

In CS2 the difference between wears is only visual. For the cheapest option, look at Field-Tested: it costs 1.3 times less.