M4A1-S | Decimator (Factory New)

Factory New (FN) is the dearest of the five wears on the M4A1-S | Decimator, and what the premium buys is unbroken contour lines. The finish scale runs to 0.85, so a clean copy and a beaten one look nothing alike, and this wear holds the short bottom of that range. The rank is Classified, the rifle drops from the Spectrum Case, and the float band is 0.00 to 0.07.

What the M4A1-S | Decimator looks like in Factory New

The base is dark blue, with thin turquoise outlines tracing the flats. Crimson pink takes the front half of the suppressor, the grip, the magazine, and the stock with its butt plate. Blue turns into crimson through a soft fade, with no dividing line. The barrel and the carry handle stay dark, and no lettering shows on the body.

Those outlines pick out the handguard ribs and the carry handle, and in Factory New they hold full length. Crimson edges pale first on this finish, with the turquoise lines on the ribs following. Down here neither has started, and the fade from blue to crimson reads without a break. Valve describes the artwork briefly: blue and crimson accents, quiet retrofuturism.

Where the M4A1-S | Decimator came from

The finish is the work of Coridium, a Steam Workshop artist, who posted the submission "M4A1-S - DECIMATOR 2000" on March 10, 2016. In the write-up he admitted he had left the muted palette of his previous skin on purpose. He remembers the eighties as neon cities and loud clothes, and he wanted something bright. The Spectrum Collection arrived on March 15, 2017, and Valve lists the artwork as number 644.

What to check before buying

What matters when picking a listing:

• the float inside 0.00 to 0.07, since the crimson rim of the suppressor already pales at the upper edge;


• whether the turquoise outlines on the handguard ribs and the carry handle are whole;


• stickers and the name tag this M4A1-S | Decimator kept from its previous owner.

No lucky artwork waits on the M4A1-S | Decimator: it is the same every time, and the strip is only 0.07 wide, so hunting a particular number buys nothing.

What the M4A1-S | Decimator costs in Factory New

The rest of the ladder, against this grade:

• Minimal Wear comes in at roughly half;


• Field-Tested at roughly a third;


• Well-Worn at a little over a third;


• Battle-Scarred at about two sevenths.

The order breaks in one place: Well-Worn is asked more than Field-Tested, though it looks the worse of the two. The three lower wears sit almost level, and a few cents hold them apart.

Fifteen Classified M4A1-S finishes carry a price in this wear, and the Decimator is sixth from the bottom. Leaded Glass and Stratosphere are its neighbors, and Guardian asks about half again as much. Hot Rod and Knight hold the top of the rank, Knight at tens of times this finish.

Getting the M4A1-S | Decimator

The Spectrum Case is the only source; no other case carries the finish.

A contract also returns it, fed ten skins one rank below from this collection. Spectrum holds three Classified finishes, so the result is random.

StatTrak and Souvenir

Stickers and craft on the M4A1-S | Decimator

The M4A1-S | Decimator has a StatTrak version. Souvenir copies of the finish turn up as well, though no Souvenir packages were ever made for it: packages only ever covered tournament map collections. Those copies are built with the Souvenir-O-Matic, which puts gold tournament stickers and a player autograph on a normal skin from the inventory.

The dark blue base is even and takes stickers well, and the light gray magazine suits them better still. There is no reason to bury the crimson stretches on the suppressor and the stock: they are what makes the finish recognizable. Cool neon stickers answer the turquoise outlines, warm yellows and oranges argue with the base.

Who this wear suits

The clean grade earns its premium on this rifle when:

• the turquoise outlines need to be whole and the crimson rim even;


• the rifle goes into the inventory to be looked at, not into CS2 matches;


• predictability matters, because the band is short and copies look alike.

In a match the threefold premium does not pay for itself: at range in CS2 blue and crimson merge whatever the float says.