USP-S | The Traitor (Field-Tested)

The USP-S | The Traitor in Field-Tested (FT) is the most affordable way into this pistol's Covert rank. The model has just four Covert finishes, and none of them costs less. The USP-S | The Traitor drops from the Snakebite Case.

What the USP-S | The Traitor looks like in Field-Tested

The base is a deep red-burgundy, and thin gold branches with leaves wind across it. The gold leans toward green, so the pattern looks more like a patina than gilding. The branches run along the side of the slide and onto the rear half of the suppressor, while the front half and the barrel are left dark gray. The grip is red, with a bright orange ribbed insert set into the front. There is no figure and no story in the artwork, only a plant ornament, although the name points to a tarot card.

The thin branches are the weak spot. In Field-Tested they leave the front edge of the slide, the joint with the suppressor and the ribbed insert the hand touches. The red planes hold up longer. But without the gold the finish turns into a plain Covert pistol, so the branches are what to watch.

Where the USP-S | The Traitor came from

The finish is credited to the artist Zaphk, while the Workshop submission was posted by Oni, on March 15, 2018, under a different title: "CS20 | The Hanged Man USP-S". In the description the authors explained the idea: it is the second series in a tarot-card collection, after the AK-47 | The Empress and the AWP | Mortis. Each weapon in it is its own major arcana. The Snakebite Collection is dated May 4, 2021, so the work waited three years for its release. The number in Valve's catalog is 1040.

What to check before buying

What matters when buying the USP-S | The Traitor:

• float: it shows how much gold has come off the edges of the slide;


• any name tag and stickers the listing already carries.

Copies of the USP-S | The Traitor differ only in wear, and the artwork is shared. The float lies within 0.15 to 0.38. Within that band there is a real choice to make, because copies near 0.15 are cleaner.

What the USP-S | The Traitor costs in Field-Tested

The ratios by wear:

• Factory New comes in at almost three times the price;


• Minimal Wear is dearer by roughly half;


• Well-Worn costs about an eighth less;


• Battle-Scarred costs about a fifth less.

A threefold gap to Factory New is moderate for a Covert skin. Minimal Wear, meanwhile, costs only one and a half times as much, and its gold is noticeably better preserved. That makes it the main alternative for anyone who dislikes the worn branches.

Among Covert USP-S skins this finish comes first counting up, out of four. The USP-S | Printstream follows and costs a few percent more, the USP-S | Kill Confirmed twice as much and the USP-S | Neo-Noir three times as much.

Getting the USP-S | The Traitor

The source is the Snakebite Case, and no other case holds this finish. To get the USP-S | The Traitor through a trade-up, you hand in ten skins of the rank below from the same collection. The Covert rank of that collection goes on into a craft for gloves.

StatTrak and Souvenir

There is a StatTrak version of the USP-S | The Traitor. Souvenir copies show up too, although this finish never got packages of its own, since those went only to tournament map collections. Players make them in the Souvenir-O-Matic, which applies gold tournament stickers and a player's autograph to a regular skin from their inventory.

Stickers and craft on the USP-S | The Traitor

The dark red background takes stickers readily, gold autographs especially: they pick up the branches. Green and turquoise stickers give a sharp contrast on burgundy, while red ones get lost. For a sticker craft in CS2, the front of the suppressor is free, and the side of the slide with the ornament is usually left open.

Who this wear suits

This wear of the USP-S | The Traitor makes sense under these conditions:

• you want a Covert USP-S in CS2 at the bottom of its four;


• you want StatTrak, since no Souvenir packages were issued for this finish;


• float matters to you: by 0.38 almost no gold branches are left on the edges.

Near the top of the band the front edge of the slide turns pale and the ornament breaks off there. The branches stay unbroken up to about 0.20.