Case Hardened & Patterns

Why does my MAC-10 | Case Hardened look different than my friend’s MAC-10 | Case Hardened?

“If you’ve ever had any interest in skins, you might’ve come across the term Patterns, which is what we are going to be talking about in this GamerPay Skins School lesson!” - Prof. Asger Yde

CSGO skins are quite unique. Some skins are REALLY changed by their pattern. Not only the looks but the whole identity of the skin. Especially so with Case Hardened skins, such as the AK or Knives!

All CSGO skins have a pattern

This pattern can range from 1-1000, and can greatly change the look of the skin.
Patterns do not have to affect the look of some skins, seeing as they are “artwork” or “design”-based.

The number is randomly generated alongside the float, once the skin is created through a drop or unboxing.
A pattern is simply an image consisting of a visual design that is applied to the weapon, the pattern number is then what decides what part of the image will be used for the skin. And just like with floats, the pattern number cannot be changed.

You could argue there are two types of patterns, one type where the pattern number does not influence how the skin looks, however, it is a bit more complicated than that, as there are also some skins where the pattern number will change the look slightly, but not to the point where it affects the price of the skin.

But if we just divide the pattern categories into 2, the AK-47 | Asiimov is an example of a skin where the pattern number does not influence how the skin looks.
An example of a skin where the pattern greatly impacts how the skin looks could be the Case Hardened.

Difference between e.g: Pattern 1 and 1000

Other skins like Fade, Crimson Web, and Slaughter are also skins where the pattern number affects the look to the point where the price can change.
However, the skin where the pattern has the highest importance by far is the Case Hardened, which we will focus on in this article.

Case Case-hardened Gold & Blue gems

Now to enlighten us about the importance of patterns on Case Hardened skins, we invited the popular blue gem collector & trader Krieke, who will now be sharing his knowledge & talking about the 3 different types of patterns on Case Hardened skins.

With each Case Hardened, you have 1000 patterns, and depending on the wear, the percentage of blue, and the positioning on the pattern template, it can really have a high impact on the value of the skin.

Also with these Case Hardened skins, you have different types of patterns!

1. Blue gems

“First of all, you have blue gems and for a knife to be an actual blue gem, it has to have at least 70% blue coverage, and by blue, I also mean sky blue.
If there are any spots of purple present, In most cases, they aren't considered blue gems unless the percentage is really high.”

Blue Gems are the most demanded, and thus also the most expensive Knife skins in the whole of CSGO!
For one Karambit there was even an offer for around 2 MILLION EUROS!
It is a 1 out of 1 but this price seems still really outworldy!

The 2 Million Euro Knife, a Factory New Karambit | Case Hardened, Pattern ID: 387.

2. Blaze gems

“These are quite similar to blue gems, but the main difference is, that they have actual gold and purple bits inside of them.

People only really consider these types of skins when the coverage is fully consisting of blue, purple, and gold.
It got its name because it looks reminiscent of a blazing flame if you include the gold and purple parts.”

3. Gold Gems

“And next to that, you also have other Case Hardeneds called gold gems.”

While Blue Gems are really demanded and sought after by the community, Gold Gems are more niche items. They do look good and unique, but the average player will not tend to go for a Gold instead of a more Blue CH knife.

How would you define the value of blue gems Krieke?

“There are three main factors:
1. The blue percentage which is the most important.
2. The wear, so the float value.
3. The positioning of the blue parts.

The percentage of blue is obvious the higher the percentage of blue you have across your blade, the higher its value is the more sought after and the more beautiful it is in-game.

Then also the wear, most people like blue gems in better conditions such as Field-Tested or Minimal Wear, those are the most sought after.

Positioning is also really important because most people like their blue when it is based on the tip.
From the top down.
So if you have a tip-based blue gem, it is worth a lot more than it is a blue gem with blue in the middle or at the bottom, for example.

Also if the blue is all over the place, the demand is much lower than if it is in one clean spot.” - Krieke

Blue Gem examples

After Krieke’s explanation, we would now like to give you some examples of the patterns and how they look on the AK-47 | Case Hardened.

For the blue gem, one of the most popular patterns is the infamous AK-47 | Case Hardened with the pattern number 661 which looks like the below picture. This is also referred to as the scar pattern due to the little gold spot at the rear of the weapon.

For the gold gem, one of the most popular patterns is the AK-47 | Case Hardened with the pattern number 784.

Finally, for the blaze gem, one of the most popular patterns is the AK-47 | Case Hardened with the pattern number 571.

The number of patterns on Case Hardened skins is important across all weapons but has the biggest impact on the price of the AK-47 and Karambit.

Most Case Hardened skins are also ranked in different tiers, ranging from Tier 1 to Tier 4.
The pattern numbers just mentioned, are all considered Tier 1 by most of the community, but it is subjective what Tier a pattern belongs in, as Valve has not made any official tier list.

But some Tiers are just hard to deny. Most of the time skins could be a Tier above,
but the other way around this rarely is the case.

Conclusion

“This wraps up the fourth lesson from GamerPay Skins School.
We hope you learned something new about skin patterns and blue and gold gems!” - Professor Asger Yde!

We would like to give a special thanks to Krieke, who has worked with Asger and us to bring you Case Hardened and the special case in patterns just a little bit closer.
Be sure to check out his Twitter. And thanks again for the help.

Time to check out what nice blue or gold gems we have for you over at GamerPay.gg!

GamerPay Skins School Lesson 4: Patterns