The Desert Eagle | Blaze is one of the oldest skins in Counter-Strike. It shipped with the Arms Deal update in August 2013 as part of the Dust Collection, a set that came from in-game drops rather than a case, and it has never been in a container since. Its float range is so narrow that only two wear levels exist.
The Arms Deal and the first collections
Valve's Arms Deal announcement, dated August 14, 2013, let players "collect, buy, sell and trade over 100 all-new decorated weapons". You could get them through timed weapon drops just by playing on official and community servers, by opening dropped weapon cases with a key, or by trading. PC Gamer's report on the launch compared the system of random drops to Team Fortress 2 and stressed that the new skins were purely cosmetic.
Valve's Arms Deal page described the update as "ten themed weapon collections". Two of them came in cases, the CS:GO Weapon Case and the eSports 2013 Case. The rest dropped in game, and a Russian guide to the update published by Igrovoy Effekt on August 21, 2013 lists them: Assault, Office, Nuke, Militia, Inferno, Vertigo, Aztec and Dust. The same guide explained that dropped weapons ran from Consumer up to Classified, while Covert skins and StatTrak versions came only from cases. Valve's own page put it the same way for StatTrak: "Available exclusively through case drops".
The Dust Collection
The Dust Collection is small and tops out at Restricted, so the Blaze is one of its three highest-grade skins. Valve's item definitions rank it like this:
| Rarity | Skins |
|---|---|
| Restricted | Desert Eagle Blaze, Glock-18 Brass, P2000 Scorpion |
| Mil-Spec | AUG Copperhead, AWP Snake Camo, Sawed-Off Copper |
| Industrial | AK-47 Predator, M4A4 Desert Storm, SCAR-20 Palm |
It is a separate set from the later Dust 2 and 2021 Dust 2 collections, despite the similar names.
That structure has an odd effect on trade-ups. A trade-up contract turns ten skins of one rarity into one of the next rarity from an input's collection, so ten Dust Mil-Specs, any mix of Copperhead, Snake Camo and Sawed-Off Copper, can only return a Restricted Dust skin, and the Blaze is one of the three possible results. The Blaze itself can't go into a contract at all: the Counter-Strike Wiki notes that skins from a collection's top grade, with no higher grade to trade into, are excluded. Our trade-up guide covers the rules and the float formula.
An airbrushed finish over chrome
The in-game description says the pistol "has been painted by airbrushing transparent paints over a chrome base coat". Valve's internal name for the finish, aa_flames, is more direct about the design. In Valve's Weapon Finishes Guide this is the anodized airbrushed style: a coloured candy coat sprayed on freehand, laid over the gun from several directions like paint through a stencil, which "wears first to the chrome base coat before revealing the substrate".
The float range runs from 0.00 to 0.08. Factory New ends at 0.07, so a Blaze is either Factory New or Minimal Wear, and every Minimal Wear copy sits between 0.07 and 0.08. The two wear names therefore cover a very small difference in float. Our float guide explains how capped ranges work.
The same finish on other guns
Valve reused the finish twice, with the same 0.00 to 0.08 cap. The UMP-45 | Blaze sits in the Mirage Collection and the R8 Revolver | Blaze in the 2021 Train Collection, both one grade lower than the Desert Eagle, at Mil-Spec.
The name turned up again in March 2026, when the Dead Hand update added 22 new gloves, among them the Sport Gloves | Blaze. That is a separate glove finish that shares the name. Our Dead Hand update article lists the full set.
StatTrak and Souvenir versions
There is no StatTrak Desert Eagle Blaze, because the Dust Collection never came in a case. For most of its life there was no Souvenir version either. That changed with the IEM Cologne 2026 Major in May 2026, when the Souvenir-O-Matic let players convert a weapon they own into a Souvenir with four gold stickers from a completed match. Dot Esports' guide to the feature even named the Desert Eagle | Blaze among the "clean canvas skins" it suggested for a craft. Every Souvenir Blaze is therefore a converted normal copy, and the stickers on it date it to 2026. Our guide to StatTrak and Souvenir explains the labels.
Checking a Blaze before you buy
- Compare the float, not just the wear. With only 0.08 of range, a 0.071 Minimal Wear and a 0.069 Factory New look nearly the same, while a 0.01 copy is about as clean as the finish gets.
- Look for chrome. Airbrushed finishes wear to the chrome base first, so check the slide in the inspect view for spots where the colour has thinned.
- Know the versions. Normal and converted Souvenir copies exist; StatTrak does not.
On CS2Sell, the float range filter on Buy lets you set an exact window, which is useful on a skin where the whole range is 0.00 to 0.08.
Sources
- 8/13 – The Arms Deal Update — Counter-Strike blog
- Arms Deal — Counter-Strike
- CS: GO Arms Deal update adds more than 100 weapon skins, supports eSports — PC Gamer
- CS:GO Arms Deal Update: weapons guide — Igrovoy Effekt
- items_game.txt — GameTracking-CS2 on GitHub
- Weapon Finishes Guide — Counter-Strike
- Trade Up Contract — Counter-Strike Wiki
- How to Use the CS2 Souvenir-O-Matic — Dot Esports
