M4A4 | The Emperor (Well-Worn)

Well-Worn (WW) is a narrow band for the M4A4 | The Emperor, 9% of the finish's scale, and the price sits level with Field-Tested. The rank is Covert. The skin belongs to the Prisma Collection and drops from the Prisma Case.

What the M4A4 | The Emperor looks like in Well-Worn

The rifle is painted almost all over. Only the barrel, muzzle device, top rail and small bolt-group parts are left bare. The blue part is the handguard, magazine, stock and grip. The receiver is dark burgundy-brown, and on its right side golden rays fan out behind the figure of a man. On the handguard lies a light panel with a pale figure, the second large element.

In Well-Worn the thin gold lines on the edges are visibly rubbed, and the corners of the stock and the butt plate lip lighten as well. The big blue fills still hold, and the figure in the middle of the receiver stays legible.

Where the M4A4 | The Emperor came from

The Prisma Collection came out on March 13, 2019, and the skin has been in the set since launch.

The finish was designed by Zaphk. Its number in Valve's catalog is 844. The Workshop submission went up on March 15, 2018, under the working title "M4A4| The Emperor". It was part of a series of tarot cards, in which, by the author's account, each weapon is a major arcana.

What to check before buying

Run through these points for the M4A4 | The Emperor:

• float: this wear is the band from 0.38 to 0.45;


• the butt plate lip and the corners of the stock, which lighten first;


• whether stickers or a name tag are already on it.

Searching by pattern index is pointless, because the artwork never changes. No single copy inside 0.38 to 0.45 stands out as the one to hunt for.

What the M4A4 | The Emperor costs in Well-Worn

Ratios against the other wears:

• Factory New is 3.3 times more expensive;


• Minimal Wear is about a quarter more;


• Field-Tested costs a few percent more;


• Battle-Scarred is about six percent cheaper.

Among Covert M4A4s at this wear, the skin is exactly in the middle of thirteen: six cheaper, six dearer. Bullet Rain is 1.5 times higher. Desert-Strike is almost level, Battlestar is about 37% cheaper, and In Living Color and Neo-Noir are cheaper by almost half. Dearest of all are Buzz Kill, Eye of Horus and The Coalition.

Getting the M4A4 | The Emperor

Besides the case, you can get it by trading up ten skins one step down. Any collection goes in, and ten from this set pin the result to it. The case itself is the Prisma Case, and no other case holds this finish.

AUG | Momentum and XM1014 | Incinegator are examples of inputs. The result is random between the collection's two Covert skins.

StatTrak and Souvenir

You can find the M4A4 | The Emperor in a StatTrak version. Souvenir copies exist too, yet no Souvenir packages came out for the finish, since they were made only for tournament map collections. These copies are assembled with the Souvenir-O-Matic, which puts gold tournament stickers and a player autograph on an ordinary skin from the inventory.

Stickers and craft on the M4A4 | The Emperor

The main fields are taken: a figure on the receiver, a panel on the handguard. The magazine and the stock, with their blue fill, remain for a sticker. Gold and orange stickers continue the lines of the artwork, and light gray and white ones read well against the blue. In CS2, one or two are enough so the story is not covered.

Who this wear suits

Well-Worn makes sense under these conditions:

• you want a Covert M4A4 for CS2 with a readable design and no factory premium;


• paying 3.4 times more for Factory New is not on the table;


• a narrow float band without surprises appeals to you.

Field-Tested costs the same and sits closer to clean on float, at 0.15 to 0.38.