MP9 | Starlight Protector (Battle-Scarred)

Battle-Scarred (BS) is the most accessible way into the finish on the MP9 | Starlight Protector. This wear spans 0.45 to 0.80, and the 0.80 ceiling is shared by the whole skin: no copy wears heavier. It is Covert rank, and the submachine gun drops from the Dreams & Nightmares Case and is used by the Counter-Terrorists.

What the MP9 | Starlight Protector looks like in Battle-Scarred

The ground is pale and marble-like, white with gray veining. That covers the top of the receiver and the stock, while thin gold trim follows the edges. The grip and magazine are dark, with gold lines and a diamond on the magazine. Gold four-point stars are scattered over the body, and the muzzle is black with a gold pattern.

Toward the rear of the receiver is drawn a unicorn with a rainbow mane: raspberry, orange, yellow, violet and light-blue lines gather into one bright patch. It is the only strong color on the body. In Battle-Scarred the wear lands on the edges, and because the gold trim is thin, the scuffs show most on it.

Where the MP9 | Starlight Protector came from

TheDanidem designed the skin. The "MP9 :: Starlight" submission appeared in the Steam Workshop on October 20, 2021. The author wrote that he had entered it for the Covert rank in the Dreams & Nightmares contest. He conceived the unicorn as a deity of sleep and a guardian.

The Dreams & Nightmares Collection was released on January 21, 2022, and the MP9 | Starlight Protector has been part of it since release. In its note on the case, Valve mentioned seventeen finishes from the Workshop. Its number in Valve's catalog is 1134.

What to check before buying

Listings of the MP9 | Starlight Protector are set apart by these things:

• float: the closer to 0.45, the more gold survives on the edges;


• a name tag and stickers, if they are already on that MP9 | Starlight Protector.

Copies differ only in wear, since the artwork is common to all. The 0.45 to 0.80 band is long, and copies at its ends look clearly different. It covers 44% of the finish's scale.

What the MP9 | Starlight Protector costs in Battle-Scarred

The other wears, relative to this one:

• Factory New costs roughly half as much again;


• Minimal Wear costs about a tenth more;


• Field-Tested costs the same;


• Well-Worn costs about 7% more.

The whole price spread fits inside one and a half times: Battle-Scarred is cheapest, but the gap to the other four is small. There is no data to compare against other Covert MP9 skins, so only the neighboring wears serve as a guide.

Getting the MP9 | Starlight Protector

Its case is the Dreams & Nightmares Case. Ten skins from the rank below in this collection produce one MP9 | Starlight Protector. Dual Berettas | Melondrama and MP7 | Abyssal Apparition, for example, qualify.

There are two Covert skins in the collection, and the odds are one in two. Five Covert skins go into a craft for a rare special item, and the list includes the Butterfly Knife and the Huntsman Knife.

StatTrak and Souvenir

The MP9 | Starlight Protector has a StatTrak version. Souvenir packages for this finish were never released, because those were made only for tournament map collections. A souvenir copy can still be assembled by hand: the Souvenir-O-Matic applies gold tournament stickers and a player autograph to a regular skin in your inventory.

Stickers and craft on the MP9 | Starlight Protector

Light marble with gold makes a busy but muted background. Dark, dense stickers read best on it, while white and gold ones get lost. The rainbow mane of the unicorn is best left open, since colored stickers compete with it. The top of the receiver and the stock remain for a craft.

Who this wear suits

Buying the MP9 | Starlight Protector in Battle-Scarred is sensible when:

• you want a Covert submachine gun at the lowest price of the five wears;


• the unicorn and its mane matter more than clean gold trim;


• the skin is going into CS2 or a collection with no claim to a factory look.

The gap to Factory New is about one and a half times, and the artwork is the same on every copy: only the condition of the edges differs.