YouTuber Sparkles spends $15k on CSGO in pursuit of ultra rare skin
CS.MONEY / Valve
Popular Counter-Strike YouTuber, Sparkles, embarked on one of his most daring ventures yet in a bid to snag a StatTrak AK47 Fire Serpent in Factory New, but was it worth it?
Trading up weapon skins in CS:GO is one of the less popular ways of acquiring your desired cosmetic. By acquiring 10 weapon skins from a specific collection, players can choose to exchange these for better graded weapon skin from the same collection with a Trade-Up Contract.
While this has been a long-established method in CS:GO, it is seldom used, given the relative expense and risk involved — especially since your desired skin is not always guaranteed.
Not one to shy away from a challenge, Sparkles set himself a near impossible (and expensive) challenge… To acquire the StatTrak Fire Serpent, in Factory New, no less.
ValveStatTrak Fire Serpent trade-up
What’s so unique about acquiring a Factory New Fire Serpent, is that the lowest possible float value is 0.06. Considering that the Minimal Wear wear range starts at 0.07, that only gives players a 1% chance of landing a Factory New Fire Serpent in a trade-up… Unless of course, all of the skins are ultra low in their Factory New float value.
With that in mind, Sparkles obtained all of the required skins with a super low float value. To make matters worse, the YouTuber was gunning for a StatTrak variant, meaning that the value of each skin was magnified considerably.
After trading some lower-tier skins to gather the necessary Classified items, Sparkles was ready to make the plunge. The trade included: one Desert Eagle Hypnotic, three P2000 Ocean Foams and six AWP Graphites. And after some initial hesitation, Sparkles acquired his “dream” weapon skin.
Was Sparkles’ trade-up worth it?
There was a 50/50 chance that Sparkles walked away with a Desert Eagle Golden Koi for his troubles, which would have proved disastrous. But the question is, was it worth it?
Based on CS.MONEY’s average sale value for a StatTrak variant of the Fire Serpent, the answer is no. According to the price chart, the weapon would (on average) sell for just north of $7,400… And considering the Fire Serpent in question is in the upper bracket of floats, with a value of 0.067, this would likely sell below the average price point.
Sparkles estimated to have spent up to $15k on the skins required, which would leave himself in a deficit of $7.6k — but at least he got his dream weapon skin, right?