M4A1-S | Printstream (Battle-Scarred)

The M4A1-S | Printstream in Battle-Scarred (BS) has a float from 0.45 to 0.80 and is the cheapest of the skin's five wears. The scale is cut off at the top. The finish's ceiling is 0.80, so Battle-Scarred takes up 44% of the scale rather than the 55% it would on a scale running to 1.00. It is Covert, and the Operation Broken Fang Case is where it drops.

What the M4A1-S | Printstream looks like in Battle-Scarred

The rifle is almost white here, with a creamy cast on the handguard, receiver, carry handle and magazine. Barrel, suppressor, front sight and grip stay dark olive and unpainted. Thin gray graphics of halftone dots, drafting lines and small symbols run over the white. An "XX" and a small heart can be read on the side of the receiver.

Valve describes the skin as a hard black-and-white design with pearl glints. In Battle-Scarred the white has given way a lot: along the handguard edges, at the corner of the receiver and at the bottom of the magazine it has yellowed noticeably. The fine gray graphics tear there before the paint comes off. Within the 0.45 to 0.80 stretch you find both nearly clean bodies and distinctly scuffed ones.

Where the M4A1-S | Printstream came from

The designer of the finish is JTPNZ. On the Steam Workshop the work was titled "M4A1-S | PRINTSTREAM", and the author posted the submission on May 28, 2020. The skin appeared on December 3, 2020, when the Operation Broken Fang Collection was added to the game. Its number in Valve's catalog is 984.

What to check before buying

What to look at in a listing:

• the float: between 0.45 and 0.80 very different bodies turn up;


• the name tag and stickers this M4A1-S | Printstream already carries;


• yellow edges on the handguard and magazine, which show how much color the white has lost.

Copies differ only in wear, because they share one artwork.

What the M4A1-S | Printstream costs in Battle-Scarred

The other wears all cost more:

• Well-Worn, 1.32 times as much;


• Field-Tested, 1.28 times as much;


• Minimal Wear, 1.86 times as much;


• Factory New, 2.83 times as much.

Of the ten Covert M4A1-S finishes priced in this wear, six cost less and three cost more. The nearest above is M4A1-S | Cyrex, about two fifths dearer. M4A1-S | Hyper Beast is a sixth cheaper and M4A1-S | Mecha Industries a fifth. M4A1-S | Player Two costs less than half, and M4A1-S | Vaporwave sets the bottom of the rank.

Getting the M4A1-S | Printstream

Its source is the Operation Broken Fang Case. A trade-up for it takes ten skins one step down, and with the ten drawn from this collection, which has two Covert skins, the outcome is one of two. The Covert rank of this set leads into a glove craft, not a knife one: Broken Fang Gloves, Driver Gloves, Hand Wraps, Moto Gloves, Specialist Gloves and Sport Gloves.

StatTrak and Souvenir

A StatTrak version of the M4A1-S | Printstream exists. No souvenir packages were made for this finish, but a souvenir copy can be built through the Souvenir-O-Matic.

Stickers and craft on the M4A1-S | Printstream

The cream background takes dark and bright stickers: black, red and blue read clearly. White and light gray ones get lost, and the small print marks compete with any sticker. On worn white a sticker lands next to the stains, so the clean areas of the magazine and carry handle are handier than the rest.

Who this wear suits

Battle-Scarred is worth buying on the M4A1-S | Printstream if:

• you want a white M4A1-S for CS2 at the lowest price of its five wears;


• the print matters more than a clean background, since the artwork reads even on a worn body;


• you choose a listing by the number within a long float stretch.