M4A1-S | Blue Phosphor (Minimal Wear)

Minimal Wear (MW) is one of two wears for the M4A1-S | Blue Phosphor, and the narrower of the two. It takes the band from 0.07 to 0.08, because the finish's scale stops at 0.08. The skin is Classified and belongs to The Control Collection.

What the M4A1-S | Blue Phosphor looks like in Minimal Wear

The whole rifle is painted blue: suppressor, receiver, handguard, magazine, grip and stock. The blue is metallic and deep, with white highlights along the ribs of the handguard and the edges. Only the barrel between the handguard and the suppressor stays black. There are no patterns or lettering, just solid lacquered blue.

Valve's own description of the method: layers of blue metallic paint over a chrome-blue base. In Minimal Wear the paint is already touched by wear, but the 0.07 to 0.08 band is 12% of the finish's scale, so there is no visible difference between listings.

Where the M4A1-S | Blue Phosphor came from

Valve drew the M4A1-S | Blue Phosphor itself; there is no Steam Workshop submission for it. Valve added The Control Collection in December 2020, and the skin arrived in the same update. Valve's catalog lists the finish under number 1017.

The item text ends with the line "Feeling blue?"

What to check before buying

Listings of the M4A1-S | Blue Phosphor are chosen on these points:

• float: the exact value inside 0.07 to 0.08;


• the state of the highlights on the handguard ribs and the receiver edges;


• name tag and stickers, which stay with the listing.

The 0.07 to 0.08 band is tight, and the outermost listings differ only in the number. The finish comes in just two wears: Factory New (FN) and Minimal Wear.

What the M4A1-S | Blue Phosphor costs in Minimal Wear

The finish has one neighboring wear: Factory New is cheaper than Minimal Wear by about a quarter. The price order runs against the wear.

The scale explains it. Factory New got the stretch from 0.00 to 0.07, while Minimal Wear got only 0.07 to 0.08, one eighth of the range.

Among Classified M4A1-S skins, Minimal Wear is second from the top. Above it sits the M4A1-S | Hot Rod, about 2.7 times more expensive. The nearest skin of the rank below is more than four times cheaper; the M4A1-S | Fatal Glitch and the M4A1-S | Atomic Alloy are fifteen to eighteen times cheaper. The cheapest in the row are the M4A1-S | Solitude, the M4A1-S | Black Lotus and the M4A1-S | Stratosphere.

Getting the M4A1-S | Blue Phosphor

No case contains the M4A1-S | Blue Phosphor. The trade-up route takes ten skins from the rank below within the set; the FAMAS | Prime Conspiracy, the Five-SeveN | Berries And Cherries and the UMP-45 | Crime Scene are among the possible inputs.

The Control Collection has two Classified skins, so the odds are one in two. The skin itself works as an input for a trade-up to the AWP | Fade.

StatTrak and Souvenir

Stickers and craft on the M4A1-S | Blue Phosphor

Valve never released a StatTrak version of the M4A1-S | Blue Phosphor. Souvenir copies exist, but no Souvenir packages were made for this finish: those were made only for tournament map collections. Such copies are built through the Souvenir-O-Matic, which puts gold tournament stickers and a player autograph on an ordinary skin from your inventory.

Deep blue lacquer is a quiet backdrop: light, white, yellow and orange stickers read best on it. Blue and purple ones blend into the body. The rifle has few flat areas, mainly the handguard and the receiver, both ribbed. For craft in CS2, the stock and the side of the receiver are the places to use.

Who this wear suits

The M4A1-S | Blue Phosphor in Minimal Wear makes sense when:

• you want the skin for a CS2 collection and the wear difference from Factory New does not matter;


• you are choosing one specific listing from the tight 0.07 to 0.08 band rather than a wear by its name;


• the rifle goes into a blue loadout and the highlights on the edges need not be perfect.

The choice between the two wears is simple: Factory New is cleaner and cheaper, and Minimal Wear costs more for a much shorter stretch of the scale.