M4A1-S | Black Lotus (Minimal Wear)

M4A1-S | Black Lotus in Minimal Wear (MW): the artwork is almost whole, and wear shows only on the edges. Floats in this wear run from 0.07 to 0.15. The rifle is Classified and drops from the Kilowatt Case.

What the M4A1-S | Black Lotus looks like in Minimal Wear

The finish is built on a blue-violet ground with branches and leaves in light blue. White flowers sit on the handguard and the front of the receiver, and a single dark orange flower stands on the side of the receiver. The suppressor, barrel and magazine are graphite, and the grip is gray.

In Minimal Wear the blue lines and flowers are nearly all intact. Only the handguard ribs and the corner of the receiver lighten, and gray metal begins to show at the magazine lip. The artwork on the flat panels is untouched, so from a distance this rifle is hard to tell from a clean one.

Where the M4A1-S | Black Lotus came from

The finish was made by moonfighter, who put the submission up on September 17, 2023, and opened it with the line "Black Lotus comes to Counter-Strike 2". Players already knew the series; here it was rebuilt.

The M4A1-S | Black Lotus appeared on February 6, 2024, when the Kilowatt Collection was added to the game. In Valve's catalog of finishes it carries number 1166.

What to check before buying

Judging a particular M4A1-S | Black Lotus comes down to these points:

• the handguard ribs and the receiver corner, where wear shows first;


• the magazine lip, where gray metal shows through;


• any stickers and name tag already on this copy.

Every copy carries the same artwork, and rare examples do not exist. The 0.07 to 0.15 stretch is short, so differences between listings vanish into the margin of error.

What the M4A1-S | Black Lotus costs in Minimal Wear

Measured against this wear:

• Factory New costs about three-fifths more;


• Field-Tested is almost twice as cheap;


• Well-Worn is about three-tenths cheaper;


• Battle-Scarred is about two-fifths cheaper.

The floor of the price scale is not at Battle-Scarred here. Field-Tested comes out cheapest, and the two lowest wears both cost more than it.

Among Classified M4A1-S finishes in Minimal Wear, this one is second from the bottom of fourteen. Only M4A1-S | Solitude is cheaper, by two-fifths. M4A1-S | Stratosphere and M4A1-S | Leaded Glass cost about half again as much, and M4A1-S | Party Animal twice as much. The top of the ranking is held by M4A1-S | Master Piece, M4A1-S | Blue Phosphor and M4A1-S | Hot Rod.

Getting the M4A1-S | Black Lotus

The rifle drops from the Kilowatt Case, and no other case holds this finish.

Besides the case, a trade-up contract yields it: ten skins one rank lower from the same collection go in. The Kilowatt Collection has three Classified skins, so the chance of getting this particular rifle is one in three.

StatTrak and Souvenir

Stickers and craft on the M4A1-S | Black Lotus

A StatTrak version of the M4A1-S | Black Lotus exists. No Souvenir packages were ever issued for this finish, because those were made only for the tournament map collections. A souvenir copy can still be assembled by hand: the Souvenir-O-Matic applies gold tournament stickers and a player autograph to an ordinary skin from your inventory. That is why a lone souvenir copy now and then turns up even where no packages ever existed.

Dense branches do not take fine detail: a scatter of small stickers reads poorly on them, while one or two large ones show at once. White and yellow stickers stand out against the indigo, and blue and purple ones get lost. For a CS2 craft in this wear, the suppressor and the stock are enough.

Who this wear suits

Buying the M4A1-S | Black Lotus in Minimal Wear is worth it for these reasons:

• an almost whole pattern without paying extra for zero wear;


• a CS2 rifle with a dark base under light stickers;


• a narrow float stretch, so there is no need to compare listings by number.

If the lowest price matters most, look at Field-Tested: it is almost twice as cheap, but the ribs are already scuffed there.