CS:GO displayable items guide by GERMIA

Coins, pins and trophies are in CS:GO a displayable reward, that you can find in-game beside your player´s name and avatar. First coins were added in February 2013 and pins were added in February 2015. These items are displayed near your CS:GO avatar next to the achievement medals, but even if you have more of them, only one can be displayed at a time. Let´s look on what types of displayable items there are and what is their meaning.

1) Reward coins

There are two types of reward coins so far:


1) The Five Year Veteran Coin, that was brought to the game in August 2013 to honor players, that owned and played any CS game 5 or more years and have clean VAC record.


2) Map Contributor Coin is rewarded to authors of community created maps used for operations. On the coin, there is a name of the map created. As an addition, tha map´s author received a special operation pass with higher quality.

These reward coins can´t be traded or sold.

2) Operation coins

Operation coins are received by purchasing an operation pass when available. The coin has three grades: brozne, silver and gold, that can be upgraded by completing challenges or missions during the operation.
The coins can´t be traded or sold.


Types of operation coins so far:

1) Operation Payback coins, that can be upgraded by your playtime on operation maps (Silver: 10 hours, Gold: 50 hours).

2) Operation Bravo coins, that can be upgraded by your playtime on operation maps (Silver: 10 hours, Gold: 30 hours) and competetive wins (Silver: 5, Gold: 15).

3) Operation Phoenix coins, that can be upgraded by your playtime on operation maps (Silver: 10 hours, Gold: 30 hours) and competetive wins (Silver: 5, Gold: 15).

4) Operation Breakout coins, that can be upgraded by completing mission, that are dropped on operation maps (Silver: 5 missions, Gold: 15 missions).

5) Operation Vanguard coins, that can be upgraded by completing campaings, that are earned by completing three lines of missions in operation journal (Silver: 3 campaign stars, Gold: 4 campaign stars).

3) Trophies

Trophies are displayable non-tradable or sellable items, that are rewarded to finalists or winners of official Valve tournaments or succesfull participators in Pick´Em challenge (Betting official stickers on teams in official Valve tournaments)




Types of trophies so far:

1) Dreamhack 2013 Tournament - Champion, finalist, semifinalist, quarterfinalist.

2) Katowice 2014 Tournaments - Champion, finalist, semifinalist, quarterfinalist.

3) Cologne 2014 Tournament - Champion, finalist, semifinalist, quarterfinalist.

4) DreamHack 2014 Tournament - Champion, finalist, semifinalist, quarterfinalist.
5) Katowice 2015 Tournament- Champion, finalist, semifinalist, quarterfinalist.
6) Cologne 2014 Pick'Em Challenge - Brozne, Silver, Gold
7) DreamHack 2014 Pick'Em Challenge - Brozne, Silver, Gold
8) Katowice 2015 Pick'Em Challenge - Brozne, Silver, Gold

4) Pins

Pins were introduced in February 2015 and are the first item you can purchase physically and not only in-game. There were sold on ESL Katowice 2015 tournament to all atendees. With an in-game code you can ativate a virtual pin in your game and display it by your avatar. The pins were sold in unmarked packages, so you couldn´t purchase a specific pin.

CS:GO commentator Anders Blume on IEM Katowice 2015 with his CS:GO pin collection

Types of pins so far:

1) Nuke pin - common
2) Train pin - common
3) Guardian pin - common
4) Tactics pin - common

5) Italy pin - uncommon
6) Militia pin - uncommon
7) Victory pin - uncommon

8) Mirage pin - rare
9) Inferno pin - rare

10) Dust II pin - very rare
11) Guardian elite pin - very rare

If you´re willing to buy one of these pins, they are currently very very rare. You can buy them on ebay or ask players, who took part on IEM Katowice.

Pin ITALY in game vs. real life:

Me unboxing one CS:GO pin on IEM Katowice 2015 (CZ language):

Germia opening collectible CS:GO pins
eSuba.Germia had a chance to put her hands on the new collectible pins for CS:GO!!! See what she got in this video!You can buy them exclusively on #IEM Katowice and put them in your game afterwards <3
Posted by eSuba.ladies on 15. březen 2015

Special thanks:
http://counterstrike.wikia.com/
https://www.facebook.com/esubaladiescsgo

CS:GO weapon patterns guide by GERMIA

It has been a long time since Valve started making skins for CS:GO and still there are some not publicly known facts about skins. Not too many people know, that there is a way you can buy a good looking weapon skin a lot cheaper than you think, and that there are some fundamental things you have to know before you buy any weapon skin on the steam market.

I´m now writing my second guide into CS:GO skins. This blog entry is devoted to skin patterns.
There has been written a lot about skin patterns, expecially about the knife skin patterns. I would like to write about  some basic knowledge about patterns, rather show some examples on weapons i found on steam market and show you some funny patterns i found on the internet :)

What is a pattern?

Pattern is a texture, from which are some of the skins randomly generated. What the game does is move the skin up/down/left/righ in any direction, thus making it look different. So this is the reason why two skins with same quality and exterior can look different from each other.

Some skins tend to be more diverse than others. To the most diverse skins belong rainbow skins like Case Hardened, Fade, or Doppler. Second category influenced by patterns are the skins with irregular texture like Slaughter, Sandstorm or Hypnotic. By selling/buying these skins you have to include their pattern into the value of the whole weapon.

Let´s take a look on some examples of some of patterns I mentioned. I would like to show you some examples of the rarest patterns, of the patterns I personally find beautiful and patterns, that are somehow special or funny. The price is changing more by the rare weapons like AK-47 and knives, by other weapons like Sawed-off shotgun or Galil AR is the pattern changing the price just minimally.

1) CASE HARDENED PATTERNS

You can find these patterns on AK-47, FiveSeven and a lot of knives. 

BLUE

The most wanted and rarest pattern you can ever wish on both AK-47 and FiveSeven (and knives) is the blue pattern. There are players willing to pay a lot of money for pattern like this. These blue Case Hardened skins are often called Blue Gems.

More about blue AK-47 here: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=380042859

GOLD

Second rarest pattern you can find on your AK-47 Case Hardened is a gold pattern. This is the only full golden AK I´ve found and there are people willing to pay hundreds of keys for it. I personally don´t find this AK attractive, but there is a tradition in finishing weapons gold and people just love it. Sometimes the gold color of Case Hardened skins can be mistaken for silver, that belongs to the cheaepest colors. And be careful - golden knife pattern are not so desired as blue or galaxy patterns, the golden color is desired most on AK-47.

RAINBOW WITH PURPLE = GALAXY

Third rarest pattern is rainbow - sometimes called galaxy pattern, but there are specialities in the rainbow patterns too. The rainbow pattern is worth more, when there are a lot of big purple, red and blue spots on gold-silverish background. I personally love the rainbow colors with a lot of blue, purple and red the most (my weapons are on the picture)

SILVER

The least desired pattern of all is the silver pattern, sometimes mixed with gold and smaller blue spots. It's the most common and the ugliest pattern you can find.
If you´re buying FiveSeven or knife, the cheapest skins are nearly always silverish. Be careful not to mistake a silverish pattern for a golden pattern!

These were the patterns ordered by their desirability. So it´s not an objective factor, because some people love silverish pattern, or they are willing to pay more for some specific pattern (blue barrel, gold magazine, ...), so it´s nothing you can anticipate. This guide is only trying to point out specific patterns, that can be worth a lot of money.

2) FADE PATTERNS

There are lot of different fade patterns on the steam market: Fade, Amber Fade, Acid Fade and Marble Fade I will show you some examples of their rarity.

MORE vs. LESS FADE

In case of these weapons, the more fade is showing (more colors), the more valuable the skin could be. You can see there is only one or two colors on the left picture, on the right picture, we could see three and more colors and that means it´s more valuable and if we find the right buyer, we can sell it for more money.

KARAMBIT FADE COLOR

In case of some weapons, one color tone can change the price. For example by the knife Karambit Fade, the more purple, the lesser the price. The more gold and pink, the higher the price. So the one on the right picture is more valuable, than the one on the left picture.

3) KAMI PATTERN

I´ve found a lot of pattern examples for FiveSeven Kami. Apparently the rarest skin you can get is the one, that resembles naked female parts on the back of the weapon! Just look at the picture:

1) "Where are your panties, ma´m?"
2) "Stick it in"
3) "I´m waving you!"
4) Buddha
5) "Hulk smash, Hulk angry!"
6) bulldog
7) "Always happy to see you!"
8) "Don´t go there!"

4)  SANDSTORM PATTERN

Sandstorm pattern is one of the most diverse patterns in the game. You can find three different types of this skin. Gold, purple-gold and purple. The rarest of these is the one, that is completely purple.

5) SLAUGHTER KNIFE

By patterned knives like Slaughetrm Crimson Web, Doppler, or Marble Fade is the position of the pattern very important, whereas the playside is more valuable than backside and centered pattern is more valuable than a pattern on the edge.

It could be quite surprising for some to find out about Slaugther knives and their most common known pattern. I´ve ordered them from the most common (zebra) to the rarest (diamond):

0) No pattern
1) Zebra stripes
2) Panda/Clown face
3+4) Kitty (diamond shaped)
5+6) Angel

7) Butterfly
8) Phoenix
9) Heart and Dogbone in one knife
10) Heart
11) Diamond in the center and heart on the bottom
12) Diamond and two hearts

6) CRIMSON WEB KNIFE

The value of the Crimson Web skins for knives depends on the amount of web centers in the pattern.
I´ve ordered them from the most common (no web) to the rarest (3 or more webs). As a matter of course when there are 2 webs on larger knife like Bayonet, it´s definitely not so rare like 2 webs on the smaller Karambit knife.

1) no web
2) one web
3) two webs
4) three or more webs

7) DOPPLER KNIFE

By buying/dropping Doppler knife skin, there are 7 color options you can get:

1) Common - Phase 1-4
Phase skins have black color combined with red and blue color.
2) Uncommon - Sapphirre and Ruby
Clean blue or clean red color.
3) Rare - Black Pearl
Clean purple color without any black, blue or red hues.

8) OTHER PATTERNS

FiveSeven Nightshade (shape of a heart) and Desert Eagle Hypnotic (shape of an eye):

Special thanks to: 
http://csgoxchange.com/
http://steamcommunity.com/id/frizzocsgo

Hope you like my guide!
If yes, please follow my facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/DATgermia  <3

Yours
germia