Desert Eagle | Kumicho Dragon (Field-Tested)

This is the Desert Eagle | Kumicho Dragon in Field-Tested (FT), and the whole finish rests on thin light lines, which wear tears first. Float here runs from 0.15 to 0.38. Classified rank; this Deagle drops from the Operation Wildfire Case.

What the Desert Eagle | Kumicho Dragon looks like in Field-Tested

The slide is gunmetal gray, and a large outlined dragon is drawn across it in white and silver: the head nearer the muzzle, the body stretching toward the rear sight. A second, smaller dragon sits on the grip panel, and the panel itself is purple-crimson. The frame, the trigger guard, the slide stop and the cut of the barrel are left as bare gray metal, with no paint.

The dragon is drawn legibly: the mouth, whiskers, scales and coils of the body can all be seen. Valve describes the artwork as laser-engraved into the slide and the grip, and it looks that way: not a fill but an outline. There are no characters or lettering on the weapon, even though the finish's name is Japanese.

In Field-Tested the artwork breaks up first along the slide edges: the top rib, the front cut, the edging of the ejection port. In the middle of the flat side the dragon stays readable longest. The purple panel suffers separately, from the hand, and loses saturation at the edges.

Where the Desert Eagle | Kumicho Dragon came from

The finish was drawn by a Steam Workshop author who goes by The Honey Badger, and he submitted it on October 22, 2015. The Wildfire Collection was added to the game on February 17, 2016, together with the case of the same operation. In Valve's finish catalog this skin is number 527. The text of Valve's description is styled as a line of dialogue: one character from the game's universe praises another's work.

What to check before buying

On the Desert Eagle | Kumicho Dragon this is what changes from listing to listing:

• Float: it shows how much of the outline is left on the slide edges;


• The integrity of the white lines at the front cut and the ejection port;


• The state of the purple grip panel;


• What the previous owner left on the Desert Eagle | Kumicho Dragon: stickers and an applied name tag.

In this wear the Desert Eagle | Kumicho Dragon spans a long band, 0.15 to 0.38, so it makes sense to compare several listings.

What the Desert Eagle | Kumicho Dragon costs in Field-Tested

The scale climbs sharply upward: Minimal Wear costs about one and a half times more, Factory New about three and a half times. Going down, it behaves oddly. Well-Worn costs about a quarter more, while Battle-Scarred is about a tenth cheaper, so the dirtiest wear costs less than the intermediate one.

Among Classified Desert Eagle finishes the Desert Eagle | Kumicho Dragon sits in the middle: three cost less and four cost more. Of the three cheaper ones, one sits right below it and two cost several times less. Of the four dearer ones, one costs a little more, one about twice as much, and two several times more.

Getting the Desert Eagle | Kumicho Dragon

The main route is the Operation Wildfire Case. The Desert Eagle | Kumicho Dragon also comes through a trade-up contract: ten skins of the rank below. Fill the contract from this collection alone and it has three Classified finishes, so the trade-up returns the one you want in about one case out of three.

StatTrak and Souvenir

Stickers and craft on the Desert Eagle | Kumicho Dragon

A StatTrak version of the Desert Eagle | Kumicho Dragon exists. No Souvenir packages were released for this finish: they were made only for the tournament map collections. But you can build a Souvenir copy yourself — the Souvenir-O-Matic puts gold tournament stickers and a player autograph on an ordinary skin from your inventory. That is why the odd Souvenir copy turns up now and then even where no packages ever existed.

Gray metal and purple make a calm base on which almost any sticker reads. Pink and crimson stickers fight the purple panel, while cool blue and white ones work for contrast. The frame below the slide is what is left for a craft; the side with the dragon is usually left open.

Who this wear suits

Field-Tested is worth buying for the Desert Eagle | Kumicho Dragon if one of these fits:

• You want a graphic Deagle for CS2 without a threefold premium for the clean wear;


• You have time to pick a listing closer to 0.15, where the outline is better preserved;


• You like the purple grip panel as an accent rather than an obstacle.

Closer to 0.38 the outline on the slide edges is already torn, and the dragon reads worse. For a tidy look in CS2, people take listings up to about 0.20.