M4A1-S | Dark Water (Minimal Wear)

The M4A1-S | Dark Water in Minimal Wear (MW) is a near-black M4A1-S with wavy graphite stripes, a finish from 2013. The skin comes in only two wears, and Minimal Wear is the better of them. It is Restricted rank, part of the Arms Deal Collection, and drops from the CS:GO Weapon Case. For CS2 it can be bought only in Minimal Wear and Field-Tested.

What the M4A1-S | Dark Water looks like in Minimal Wear

The rifle is dark. Wavy graphite stripes of differing reflectivity run along the suppressor and handguard, and the rest of the body is coal black. According to Valve's description, the stripes are applied in metallic paints over a chrome base. The skin has no bright colors.

The float band for this wear of the M4A1-S | Dark Water runs from 0.10 to 0.15. The skin's float is cut off on both sides, from 0.10 to 0.26, so Factory New, Well-Worn and Battle-Scarred do not exist for it. Those 0.05 make up 31% of the scale, and wear is fixed when the skin drops.

Where the M4A1-S | Dark Water came from

Valve made the finish in-house, and there was no Steam Workshop submission for it. The Arms Deal Collection was released on August 14, 2013, and the M4A1-S | Dark Water has been part of it since the very start. Its number in the Valve catalog is 60.

The same collection holds USP-S | Dark Water, which carries the same finish name.

What to check before buying

Before taking an M4A1-S | Dark Water, look at these points:

• the name tag and stickers: on the M4A1-S | Dark Water they stay with the listing;


• the artwork: the finish has pattern variance, so two listings in the same wear can differ in how the stripes look;


• the version: a regular listing and a StatTrak™ one are separate items with different prices.

The 0.10 to 0.15 band on the M4A1-S | Dark Water is tight, and the outermost listings differ only by the number.

What the M4A1-S | Dark Water costs in Minimal Wear

The skin has two wears, and Field-Tested comes in 1.19 times cheaper than MW, which is roughly a sixth less.

Among Restricted M4A1-S skins this one is second by price, and only Icarus Fell costs more. The nearest neighbor below, Bright Water, is almost half the price, and the other Restricted M4A1-S skins cost several times less.

Getting the M4A1-S | Dark Water

The skin drops from the CS:GO Weapon Case. A trade-up contract for the M4A1-S | Dark Water is made of ten skins one rank down from the same collection. Those are AUG | Wings, MP7 | Skulls and SG 553 | Ultraviolet.

The collection has three Restricted skins, so the chance is one in three. The skin itself goes into trade-ups for AK-47 | Case Hardened and Desert Eagle | Hypnotic.

StatTrak and Souvenir

The M4A1-S | Dark Water has a StatTrak version. Souvenir copies of the finish also turn up, but no packages were made for it: those were issued only for tournament map collections. Such copies are built through the Souvenir-O-Matic, which puts golden tournament stickers and a player autograph on an ordinary skin from the inventory.

Stickers and craft on the M4A1-S | Dark Water

The dark body leaves plenty of room, and bright stickers read on it at once. White, yellow and red ones give contrast, while black and graphite ones merge with the paint.

Who this wear suits

Buying the M4A1-S | Dark Water in Minimal Wear is worth it for reasons like these:

• you want a dark M4A1-S for CS2 with a graphite pattern and the cleanest paint the skin comes in;


• the difference in condition matters: MW is closer to untouched paint than Field-Tested;


• you are building a loadout in black and graphite, with stickers for contrast.