M4A1-S | Hyper Beast (Field-Tested)

The M4A1-S | Hyper Beast in Field-Tested (FT): the beast covers nearly the whole rifle, from the handguard to the stock tube. In this grade the float band is 0.15 to 0.38. It is a Covert rank skin that drops from the Chroma 2 Case, one of the cases CS2 inherited from CS:GO.

What the M4A1-S | Hyper Beast looks like in Field-Tested

The base is cold: the handguard, gas tube and stock tube are flooded with blue and teal, with green veins and pink splatter over them. The suppressor stays dark and without artwork, the largest clean part of the rifle.

The beast's face sits high, on the rear of the receiver by the rear sight. It is painted pale blue, almost icy, with a bright red eye open in it. Below, the raspberry begins: the magazine well and magazine are covered in crimson streaks with orange drops, and an acid-green lacing runs across them. The carry handle and the pistol grip have no paint.

In Field-Tested the handguard ribs and the top of the receiver lighten first. On the blue base this shows more clearly than on the raspberry one: the cold tone turns gray. The red eye lies on the rear sight hump, and near the top of the band a scuff runs across it.

Where the M4A1-S | Hyper Beast came from

The finish is by frontaLOBE, and the Steam Workshop submission is dated March 8, 2015. In the description the author stated that the artwork was not carried over from other works in the series but drawn for this model. A link to the Behance page of the illustrator Brock Hofer sits there too.

The collection was released on April 15, 2015. In Valve's skin catalog the rifle is number 430 and the sniper version is 475. The order is the reverse of the submissions: the sniper version reached the Workshop first, while the M4A1-S | Hyper Beast reached the game first.

The in-game description carries a line from a fictional client who asks for the artwork to be sensitive to ultraviolet light. That is part of the case's story, not a property of the skin.

What to check before buying

This is how a listing is judged:

• the float: on the blue handguard scuffs show most, on the raspberry magazine they are barely visible;


• the rear sight hump, where the beast's red eye rubs off first;


• the previous owner's stickers and name tag.

The artwork is the same on every copy, so pattern does not move the price.

What the M4A1-S | Hyper Beast costs in Field-Tested

The four lower grades of this rifle cost nearly the same. Minimal Wear and Well-Worn are dearer than Field-Tested by a few percent, while Battle-Scarred is level. Only Factory New is noticeably dearer, by roughly two times.

The rifle has ten Covert skins, and the M4A1-S | Hyper Beast is sixth from the bottom. The nearest neighbors below are M4A1-S | Mecha Industries and M4A1-S | Chantico's Fire, and above it M4A1-S | Printstream and M4A1-S | Cyrex. M4A1-S | Welcome to the Jungle and M4A1-S | Imminent Danger are dearer several times over.

Getting the M4A1-S | Hyper Beast

The rifle drops from the Chroma 2 Case. To get the M4A1-S | Hyper Beast by trade-up you put in ten skins one rank down. If all ten come from this collection, the set has two Covert skins, and the second is MAC-10 | Neon Rider, so the trade-up gives one of the two.

Five Covert skins of the collection go into a knife craft. From the Chroma 2 set come the Bayonet, Flip Knife, Gut Knife, Karambit and M9 Bayonet.

StatTrak and Souvenir

Stickers and craft on the M4A1-S | Hyper Beast

The M4A1-S | Hyper Beast has a StatTrak version. No Souvenir packages were ever made for this finish, because packages only ever covered tournament map collections. A souvenir copy can still be built by hand. The Souvenir-O-Matic puts gold tournament stickers and a player autograph on a normal skin from the inventory. That is why the odd souvenir copy turns up where no package was ever made.

There is little clean room on the rifle: the paint reaches nearly every part. Only the suppressor is free, and it is also the longest even stretch for a sticker. On the blue handguard white and yellow stickers read, and on the raspberry magazine black and white ones. Green and pink ones get lost, so the craft on the M4A1-S | Hyper Beast has just one place to go.

Who this wear suits

Field-Tested is worth buying when:

• you want a bright M4A1-S for CS2 without a twofold surcharge for Factory New;


• the beast's face by the rear sight matters: in the lower half of the band it is still whole;


• the craft is planned on the suppressor, not on the body.

The band of 0.15 to 0.38 on the M4A1-S | Hyper Beast is long, and the copies at its ends look noticeably different. The difference shows mostly on the blue part.