M4A1-S | Nightmare (Minimal Wear)

In Minimal Wear (MW), the M4A1-S | Nightmare sits at the edge where the price drops sharply while the light blue lines on the dark base are still almost whole. The wear covers floats from 0.07 to 0.15. The rifle is Classified rank, built for the Counter-Terrorist side, and it comes from the Horizon Case.

What the M4A1-S | Nightmare looks like in Minimal Wear

The rifle reads as a dark blank carrying bright, elongated strokes of light blue. They lie on the handguard, receiver, magazine and stock, and a blue stripe glows on the barrel between the suppressor and the handguard. The grip and the suppressor stay black.

The artwork is built from claw-like strokes, with no central figure. Valve's description calls it a night visitor, and the caption beneath it advises setting an alarm clock.

In Minimal Wear, thin light scratches appear along the edges of the dark base, but the strokes keep their brightness. Black makes such marks easier to spot than they would be on a busy, multicolor skin.

Where the M4A1-S | Nightmare came from

apel8 uploaded the submission “M4A1-S | Nightmare” to the Workshop on October 29, 2017. The Horizon Collection went live on August 1, 2018, with this skin in the set from the first day. Valve's catalog numbers it 714.

What to check before buying

These are the points to compare between listings:

• float: in this wear the skin sits in a narrow band from 0.07 to 0.15, and copies hardly differ from one another;


• light scratches on the dark edges;


• what a previous owner left on the rifle, meaning stickers and a name tag.

No copy carries a “rare” pattern you could pay extra for, because the artwork is the same on every one.

What the M4A1-S | Nightmare costs in Minimal Wear

Measured from Minimal Wear, the wears line up like this:

• Factory New is nine and a half times pricier;


• Field-Tested comes in two and a half times cheaper;


• Well-Worn is more than three times cheaper;


• Battle-Scarred is more than three times cheaper.

The skin stands between two steps: Factory New above it, and below it three scuffed wears with prices close together.

In the row of fourteen Classified M4A1-S finishes, this one has six cheaper neighbors and seven more expensive ones. M4A1-S | Decimator is a sixth cheaper, M4A1-S | Party Animal a third cheaper, and M4A1-S | Leaded Glass half the price. M4A1-S | Solitude is almost six times cheaper. M4A1-S | Blue Phosphor costs more than thirty times as much, and M4A1-S | Hot Rod more than eighty times.

Getting the M4A1-S | Nightmare

The skin has one case, the Horizon Case. A trade-up for it takes ten skins one rank lower, all from the same collection. The odds are one in three, because the collection holds three Classified skins. The skin also works as trade-up input itself, with AK-47 | Neon Rider or Desert Eagle | Code Red as the result.

StatTrak and Souvenir

The M4A1-S | Nightmare comes in a StatTrak version. No Souvenir packages were ever released for this finish, since those existed only for tournament map collections. You can still make a Souvenir copy yourself: the Souvenir-O-Matic puts gold tournament stickers and a player autograph on an ordinary skin from your inventory. That is why a few Souvenir copies turn up now and then, even where no packages ever existed.

Stickers and craft on the M4A1-S | Nightmare

Light stickers read well on the dark base, but they compete with the strokes. Holographic and cool, single-color stickers are gentler. Keep the area with the best lines open and build a CS2 craft on the suppressor and the grip.

Who this wear suits

Minimal Wear is a sensible buy on the M4A1-S | Nightmare if:

• you want an M4A1-S whose artwork is still almost intact, without paying nine and a half times more for Factory New;


• a skin with a slight trace of wear is acceptable in CS2;


• you do not need to choose by float number, since the band from 0.07 to 0.15 is narrow.