USP-S | Black Lotus (Factory New)

USP-S | Black Lotus in Factory New (FN): the paint on the slide is whole to the edges, and the price runs more than eight times above Minimal Wear. This wear spans floats of 0.00 to 0.07. The rank is Mil-Spec, and the pistol drops from the Operation Riptide Case.

What the USP-S | Black Lotus looks like in Factory New

Only the slide is painted. A blue-violet field carries a cluster of lilac and pink flowers at the front edge, with a large peach flower in its middle. Thin leafy branches reach toward the rear. The frame, trigger guard, grip and suppressor stay steel-gray. The suppressor is perforated with round holes.

Valve describes the finish as a black lotus flower on the slide. In Factory New the paint is solid: flowers and branches read in full. There is no pale metal on the slide edges, and the border with the gray frame is clean.

Where the USP-S | Black Lotus came from

The Operation Riptide Collection was released on September 21, 2021, and the USP-S | Black Lotus has belonged to it from the start. Valve's note on the operation says that pass missions award new agents, weapon collections, stickers and patches.

This skin should not be confused with the M4A1-S | Black Lotus: that one comes from a different collection, the Kilowatt Collection, and has a different rank, Classified.

What to check before buying

When choosing a USP-S | Black Lotus listing, this is what counts:

• float: inside 0.00 to 0.07 the paint is whole, but near the upper bound the slide edges lighten first;


• the flowers at the front edge of the slide, which should read without scuffs;


• the name tag and stickers already fitted to this USP-S.

Copies never differ in artwork, and rare examples are not a thing here. The 0.00 to 0.07 band is tight, so the outermost listings differ only in the number.

What the USP-S | Black Lotus costs in Factory New

Here is how far each of the other wears falls below this one:

• Minimal Wear, by a factor of eight and a quarter;


• Field-Tested, by a factor of twenty-one;


• Well-Worn, by a factor of twenty-seven;


• Battle-Scarred, by almost a factor of thirty.

The gap is sharp: the Factory New band takes up less than one twelfth of the finish's wear scale, which runs to 0.90. What buyers pay for here is intact paint on the slide.

Among Mil-Spec USP-S skins in Factory New, this one sits above the middle: ten cost less and four cost more. USP-S | Purple DDPAT comes right above it, a third higher, then USP-S | Stainless at twice as much. After those come USP-S | Blueprint and USP-S | Business Class. Below it, USP-S | Blood Tiger is cheaper by more than one and a half times and USP-S | Lead Conduit by half.

Getting the USP-S | Black Lotus

The USP-S | Black Lotus drops from the Operation Riptide Case, and no other case holds this finish.

A trade-up contract does not lead here: Mil-Spec is the lowest rank in this collection, and a contract returns a rank above what goes in. The finish itself works as an input, though: ten Mil-Spec skins from the collection return one Restricted.

StatTrak and Souvenir

Stickers and craft on the USP-S | Black Lotus

There is a StatTrak version of the USP-S | Black Lotus. Souvenir packages were not issued for this finish; they existed only for the tournament map collections. A souvenir can still be built at home: the Souvenir-O-Matic puts gold tournament stickers and a player autograph on an ordinary skin from the inventory. Single souvenir copies therefore appear from time to time, even without any packages.

The flowers fill the slide while the rest of the body is neutral gray, so a sticker there reads without competing with the artwork. Warm pink and peach stickers will merge into the flowers, and cool blue and white ones give contrast. For a CS2 craft, cleanliness matters: on whole paint someone else's sticker is noticed at once.

Who this wear suits

Buying the USP-S | Black Lotus in this wear makes sense if:

• you want a pistol with a flowered slide and not one pale spot on the edges;


• a CS2 loadout calls for whole paint rather than a low price;


• a craft needs a neutral gray base with a colored slide.

If the artwork matters more than zero wear, go for Minimal Wear: it costs eight and a quarter times less.