ItemsOct 9, 20266 min readCS2Sell

Every CS2 knife finish explained, from Fade to Freehand

All 25 CS2 knife finishes grouped by the case line that brought them: the 2013 originals, Night Stripe, Chroma and Gamma, with float ranges, which models have each, and pattern notes.

Every knife in CS2 draws on the same pool of 25 finishes, plus the unpainted vanilla version. They arrived in three waves between 2013 and 2016, with one replacement finish added in 2018, and every case since has reused them on more models. This guide goes through each finish by the case line that introduced it.

The finish lines at a glance

Line	First case	Finishes	Models that have it
Original	CS:GO Weapon Case, August 2013	12, plus vanilla	All 20
Chroma	Chroma Case, January 2015	6	18: all except the Classic and Kukri
Gamma	Gamma Case, June 2016	6	10: the five 2013 knives, Butterfly, Huntsman, Falchion, Shadow Daggers, Bowie

Descriptions below paraphrase the in-game text, and float ranges come from the game's item definitions; our float guide explains the wear tiers.

Original finishes (2013)

These launched with the Bayonet, Flip, Gut, Karambit and M9 Bayonet, and every later model got them in its first case, from the 2014 Huntsman to the 2024 Kukri.

Finish	What the in-game text says	Float range
Fade	Transparent paints airbrushed to fade together over chrome	0.00 to 0.08
Slaughter	Zebra stripes in aluminium and chrome under a tomato red candy coat	0.01 to 0.26
Case Hardened	Colour case-hardened with wood charcoal at high temperature	0.00 to 1.00
Crimson Web	Spider web hydrographic over a red base coat	0.06 to 0.80
Blue Steel	Cold blued	0.00 to 1.00
Stained	A forced patina from lemon and mustard	0.00 to 1.00
Night	Parts spray-painted in a night ops colour scheme	0.06 to 0.80
Safari Mesh	Sprayed through mesh fencing and cardboard cutouts	0.06 to 0.80
Boreal Forest	Forest camouflage hydrographic	0.06 to 0.80
Forest DDPAT	Digital disruptive pattern hydrographic	0.06 to 0.80
Scorched	Sprayed in a sun-dappled pattern	0.06 to 0.80
Urban Masked	Sprayed through a tangle of masking tape	0.06 to 0.80

Two of these depend heavily on the paint seed. Fade copies are graded by fade percentage, explained in our fade guide. Case Hardened copies are judged on how much blue shows, covered in the blue gem article. Slaughter is the other one to watch for range: it starts at 0.01 and stops at 0.26, so it never goes past Field-Tested.

Night Stripe (2018)

When the Horizon Case arrived in August 2018, its four knives came with Night Stripe instead of Night. The in-game text describes it as spray-painted "with a tape mask pattern in a night ops color scheme", and it runs from 0.06 to 0.80. Every model released since, the Shattered Web knives, the Classic and the Kukri, has Night Stripe too. The ten knives from 2013 to 2016 keep Night, and no model has both.

Night and Night Stripe, plus three more original finishes

Chroma finishes (2015)

The Chroma Case of January 2015 introduced six finishes on the five 2013 knives, and Chroma 2 and Chroma 3 repeated them. The Spectrum cases of 2017 brought them to the Butterfly, Huntsman, Falchion, Shadow Daggers and Bowie, the Prisma cases to the Horizon knives, and the 2025 Fever Case to the Shattered Web knives.

Finish	What the in-game text says	Float range
Doppler	Black and silver metallic paint, marbleized, then candy coated	0.00 to 0.08
Marble Fade	The same marbleizing, candy coated in three colours	0.00 to 0.08
Tiger Tooth	Anodized orange and hand-etched in a tiger stripe pattern	0.00 to 0.08
Damascus Steel	Forged from a billet of two types of carbon steel	0.00 to 0.50
Rust Coat	Still working, though the outer surfaces have rusted	0.40 to 1.00
Ultraviolet	Parts spray-painted in black and purple	0.06 to 0.80

Doppler comes in seven phases, each a separate paint, which our Doppler phases guide explains. Marble Fade is the one where pattern names matter most: according to the Steam Community's Fire & Ice guide, only the Karambit, Bayonet, Flip and Gut can roll the red-and-blue Fire & Ice layout, with seed 412 at the top on all four. Rust Coat starts at 0.40, so it only exists in Well-Worn and Battle-Scarred. And the game files give the Talon Knife its own versions of Doppler Phase 1 to 4, Marble Fade and Damascus Steel, while the Huntsman and Falchion each have their own Ultraviolet.

The six Chroma finishes on six different models

Gamma finishes (2016)

The Gamma Case and Gamma 2 Case brought six more finishes to the five 2013 knives in 2016. The Operation Riptide Case of September 2021, followed by the Dreams & Nightmares Case, gave the same set to the Butterfly, Huntsman, Falchion, Shadow Daggers and Bowie. The Horizon, Shattered Web, Classic and Kukri knives have no Gamma finishes.

Finish	What the in-game text says	Float range
Gamma Doppler	The Doppler marbleizing and candy coat, in its own phases	0.00 to 0.08
Lore	Custom painted with knotwork	0.00 to 0.65, or 1.00 on Bowie, Butterfly and Shadow Daggers
Autotronic	Anodized red, with steel mesh to lighten it	0.00 to 0.85
Black Laminate	Stonewashed, with a black laminate handle	0.00 to 1.00
Bright Water	Blue camo hydrographic	0.00 to 0.50
Freehand	Painted black and purple, then decorated with metallic marker	0.00 to 0.48

Gamma Doppler has four phases plus the all-green Emerald, also covered in the Doppler guide. In the game files, Lore, Autotronic and Black Laminate are separate paints for each model, drawn to fit that blade. The Lore range is the odd one out, stopping at 0.65 on most knives but running the full 0.00 to 1.00 on three.

Nothing new since

No knife finish has been introduced since Night Stripe. The Kilowatt Case of February 2024 launched the Kukri Knife with what Valve's notes called "original finishes", in the Night Stripe version of the set, and the October 2024 Gallery Case reused the same Kukri list. The Fever Case in March 2025 spread Chroma to the Shattered Web knives, and the Dead Hand Terminal of March 2026 added gloves rather than knife finishes. As of October 2026, the 25 finishes above are the complete list.

Reading a finish before you buy

Confirm phase and seed in game. The information panel shows the Finish Catalog number and the Pattern Template.
Know what the model can roll. Fire & Ice only exists on four knives, and Gamma finishes on ten.

On CS2Sell, Buy has filters for float range, paint seed, Doppler phase, fade percentage and Case Hardened blue percentage, so you can search a finish by the details that matter for it.

Sources

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