M4A4 | The Emperor (Factory New)

Factory New (FN) on the M4A4 | The Emperor is the finish at its peak. The golden rays on the receiver are intact along their whole length, and not a single edge has a lightened patch. The wear covers 0.00 to 0.07, under a tenth of the finish's own scale. The rank is Covert, and the Prisma Case is where it drops.

What the M4A4 | The Emperor looks like in Factory New

The main scene sits on the side of the receiver: a man in a spreading golden fan of rays, beside a sign shaped like a loop with a crossbar. The receiver itself is dark burgundy-brown, and the gold outline of the fan reads on it down to the last line. The second large element is moved to the handguard: a rectangular card-like panel with a pale figure inside.

Around those two panels lies a fill of dark blue and bright blue. The handguard, magazine, stock and grip are strewn with gold and orange lines, star-dots and triangles. The barrel, muzzle brake and top rail got no paint at all and stayed dark metal.

In Factory New no edge is touched. The thin gold rays along the ribs of the receiver and handguard are whole, and the heel of the buttplate and the corners of the stock are clean. Those are the places that give way first, so the top wear is recognized by them, not by the figure at the center of the receiver.

Where the M4A4 | The Emperor came from

The design was conceived by an artist who goes by Zaphk. The submission was published to the Steam Workshop from the account Oni on March 15, 2018, with the working title "M4A4| The Emperor".

In the submission's description the author presented the work as the second installment in a collection based on tarot cards, where every gun is given its own major arcana. The Prisma Collection, which the M4A4 | The Emperor comes from, came out on March 13, 2019. In Valve's skin catalog the item is number 844.

What to check before buying

What changes from listing to listing on the M4A4 | The Emperor:

• the float: within 0.00 to 0.07 it decides how clean the ribs of the receiver are;


• a name tag and stickers, if they are already on this M4A4 | The Emperor;


• the buttplate heel, where the first scuff shows earliest.

There is no "rare" pattern to buy on the M4A4 | The Emperor: the artwork is the same on every copy. The 0.00 to 0.07 band is short, and the difference between listings disappears into the margin of error.

What the M4A4 | The Emperor costs in Factory New

Minimal Wear costs about three and a half times less, Well-Worn almost four times less, and Field-Tested and Battle-Scarred about four times less.

The four lower wears cost close to one another, and their order is not a straight line: the more scuffed Well-Worn costs more than Field-Tested. On a dark blue base wear reads weakly, so what you pay extra for here is untouched gold, not a clean background.

Among Covert M4A4 skins in Factory New, this finish ranks tenth by price. Nearest below is the M4A4 | Bullet Rain, followed by the M4A4 | Royal Paladin and the M4A4 | Full Throttle. Only the M4A4 | Buzz Kill, the M4A4 | Eye of Horus and the M4A4 | The Coalition cost more.

Getting the M4A4 | The Emperor

The M4A4 | The Emperor drops from the Prisma Case, where the finish stands at Covert; it was never put in any other case. Ten skins of the next rank down from this collection make one M4A4 | The Emperor.

StatTrak and Souvenir

Stickers and craft on the M4A4 | The Emperor

The M4A4 | The Emperor 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.

Room for stickers is tight. The figure in rays holds the side, and the panel and the scatter of stars take up the handguard. Even stretches remain only on the stock and the spine of the magazine. In tone the finish takes warm colors, such as gold, orange and copper, while acid colors fall apart next to the fan.

Who this wear suits

Factory New is worth it for the M4A4 | The Emperor when:

• you want untouched gold rays and the outline along the contour;


• the rifle goes to the CS2 inventory for inspection, not into every match;


• a fourfold difference from the other wears does not bother you.

For playing CS2 this wear is overkill: in first person you see the rail and the barrel, the very parts that received no paint.