M4A1-S | Fade (Factory New)

Factory New (FN) is the grade most M4A1-S | Fade copies arrive in. Its wear scale stops at 0.08, so only two grades exist and Factory New takes nearly nine tenths of that short band. The rank is Covert.

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

The finish is transparent paint laid over chrome, and the color travels the length of the rifle. The suppressor is gold, the handguard turns orange and then scarlet, and the receiver carries a deep magenta. By the buttplate the gradient drops into violet with blue in it. Stock and pistol grip were left unpainted, in gray olive.

The chrome shows through everywhere. The surface is mirrored, so the gradient glints rather than sitting flat. That also means the share of each color changes from copy to copy. On the M4A1-S | Fade the transition never lands twice in the same place. Two rifles of one grade can carry visibly different amounts of yellow and pink.

In Factory New the chrome is nowhere broken, the borders between colors stay soft, and no matte patches appear. In Minimal Wear the scuffing reaches the receiver edge and the trigger guard, and the mirror goes dead on those spots.

Where the M4A1-S | Fade came from

Valve drew the finish itself, and the catalog lists it under number 1177. It came out on October 2, 2024, the day Valve opened the Armory, its rewards system for playtime. The Sport & Field Collection behind the skin never went into a case; copies were handed out in the Armory for credits.

Then on July 8, 2026 a Valve update note said the Train 2025 and Sport & Field collections had left the Armory. The source is closed: an M4A1-S | Fade can no longer be unboxed or bought with credits.

What to check before buying

• the spread of color, which differs between copies, so compare several listings before paying;


• the float inside 0.00 to 0.07, which decides little on a band this short;


• an applied name and any stickers the listing comes with.

What the M4A1-S | Fade costs in Factory New

Minimal Wear, the second and last grade, starts about a quarter higher. The gradient there looks much the same, and copies are harder to come by. There is nothing else to set against it, because Field-Tested and below do not exist for this finish.

Eleven Covert finishes exist for this rifle, and in Factory New the Fade sits third from the bottom. Only M4A1-S | Vaporwave and M4A1-S | Player Two come in under it, each by roughly a tenth. Directly above sit M4A1-S | Cyrex and M4A1-S | Mecha Industries, dearer by a sixth and a quarter.

Getting the M4A1-S | Fade

A finished listing or a contract, and nothing else. The contract takes ten Classified skins from The Sport & Field Collection. The set holds a single Covert finish, so the outcome is known before the trade-up goes in. The collection is out of the Armory for good.

StatTrak and Souvenir

Stickers and craft on the M4A1-S | Fade

No StatTrak version of the M4A1-S | Fade was ever released. Souvenir copies do turn up, but no Souvenir packages were made for this finish: 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.

A mirrored base with a shimmer is a hard background. Stickers argue with the gradient, and a holo competes with the chrome itself. Plain matte ones sit more neatly in CS2, and the usual place for them is the unpainted stock. The receiver carrying the transition is better left clear, since that is what the rifle is bought for.

Who this wear suits

Buying the M4A1-S | Fade in Factory New makes sense on these terms:

• clean chrome under the paint is wanted, with no matte patches along the edges;


• how the gradient fell matters, as a scuffed base reads it worse;


• the rifle goes into a CS2 collection, where a closed source counts.

The gradient on the M4A1-S shows up mostly in the inventory and on inspect, since first person leaves only a slice of the body in view. For play the gap against Minimal Wear does not pay off: in a round the gradient barely shows.