Every Marble Fade knife uses the same red, blue and yellow texture, but no two show it in quite the same way. The paint seed decides which part of that texture lands on the blade, and collectors have named the layouts they like best, the most famous being Fire and Ice. This guide covers how those names work, which knives they apply to and where the community's lists stop being reliable.
What Marble Fade is
Marble Fade arrived with the Chroma Case on January 8, 2015, as one of six new knife finishes alongside Doppler, Damascus Steel, Tiger Tooth, Rust Coat and Ultraviolet. According to the Counter-Strike Wiki, the first Marble Fades were on the five original knives, and later cases spread the Chroma finishes to more models: the Spectrum cases to the Huntsman, Butterfly, Falchion, Shadow Daggers and Bowie, the Prisma Case to the Navaja, Stiletto, Talon and Ursus, and the Fever Case, in March 2025, to the Paracord, Survival, Skeleton and Nomad. The Classic Knife and the Kukri have no Marble Fade. The Specialist Gloves have a glove finish of the same name.
The in-game description explains the look: the knife "has been painted with black and silver metallic paints using a marbleizing medium, then candy coated in three colors". The float range is 0.00 to 0.08, so every Marble Fade knife is Factory New or Minimal Wear, and wear has little to do with how the colours sit.
How the seed sets the pattern
Valve's Weapon Finishes Guide explains that every finish defines ranges for how its texture is offset and rotated, and that the game picks values within those ranges when an item is created. The paint seed, shown in the inspect screen as the Pattern Template, is the number behind those picks. Our pattern index guide covers the mechanism in general.
For Marble Fade, the seed effectively slides the three-colour texture along the blade. The author of "The Complete Fire & Ice Guide" on Steam, first posted in 2016 and last updated in April 2025, describes the pattern index as what "determines where the pattern begins or sits on the blade", and warns not to confuse it with 413, the paint index that identifies the finish itself. Because the texture is scaled to each knife model, the same seed gives different results on different knives.
The play side matters most. That is the side of the blade you see when the knife is held in first person, and most named patterns are judged on it.
The named patterns
Fire and Ice. The play side shows only red and blue, with no yellow. WIN.gg's 2020 guide called Fire and Ice patterns "the rarest of the rare knife skins", and the Steam guide describes the ideal as an even red and blue split.
Max fake Fire and Ice. A layout that is almost Fire and Ice but has a little yellow, usually near the tip or the handle depending on the knife. WIN.gg notes these are more common than true Fire and Ice but still rare.
Tricolor. Once enough yellow appears, the knife shows all three colours and collectors call it a tricolor. The Steam guide draws the line differently for each model: on the Gut Knife, for example, a pattern stays fake Fire and Ice as long as the yellow does not reach past the hook.
Tip colours. On knives that cannot produce Fire and Ice, collectors tend to describe a Marble Fade by its tip. A widely rated Steam guide that picks favourite seeds for every knife points M9 Bayonet and Butterfly buyers to red tips and picks Huntsman seeds for their blue tip.
Which knives can be Fire and Ice
Both guides agree that true Fire and Ice is possible on only four models. The Steam guide's ranking, built by comparing images of all of roughly a thousand patterns, gives these counts:
| Knife | True Fire and Ice seeds | Share of patterns | "Max" levels in the ranking |
|---|---|---|---|
| Karambit | 123 | 12.3% | 10 |
| Bayonet | 71 | 7.1% | 7 |
| Gut Knife | 71 | 7.1% | 7 |
| Flip Knife | 29 | 2.9% | 4 |
Seed 412 is the "1st max", the best possible layout, on all four. The guide lists the M9 Bayonet, Butterfly, Bowie, Huntsman, Falchion, Shadow Daggers, Navaja, Stiletto, Ursus, Talon and the four Shattered Web knives as unable to produce it, and its April 2025 update notes that none of the new Fever Case knives appear to make Fire and Ice possible. WIN.gg makes the same point about the Talon: it can come close, but there is always some yellow.
Why tiers are conventions, not Valve data
The game shows one number, the Pattern Template. Fire and Ice, max levels, fakes and tricolors are names the community gives to what that number produces, and they are judged by eye. The Steam guide is open about this. Its author notes that an earlier way of ranking Karambit maxes lumped different layouts together, keeps the old groupings next to the new ranks, and says where its 3rd and 4th max begin "may depend on the guide you are using". He also points out that a Bayonet's tip can look yellow in some screenshots when it is really orange.
Two more things can shift what you see. Valve's notes for May 24, 2024 include a fix for the appearance of Doppler, Gamma Doppler and Marble Fade, so older screenshots may not match the game today. And lighting in the inspect screen changes how red, orange and yellow read. The Doppler phases guide covers the related Chroma finishes.
Checking a Marble Fade before you buy
- Read the Pattern Template yourself. Inspect the knife in game and note the number, then check it against a list for that exact knife model.
- Judge the play side. That is the side the tiers describe. A strong back side is a bonus, not the main thing.
- Treat the label as a claim. "Fire and Ice" or "1st max" in a listing is the seller's reading of a community list. Look at the knife and decide whether the colours match the name.
- Remember the narrow float. With a 0.00 to 0.08 range, the seed matters far more than the wear.
On CS2Sell, the paint seed filter on Buy lets you search Marble Fade listings for the exact pattern numbers on your list.
Sources
- The Complete Fire & Ice Guide — Steam Community
- A comprehensive guide to CSGO's Fire and Ice skin patterns — WIN.gg
- Top 3 Patterns for Every Knife in CS2 — Steam Community
- Chroma Case — Counter-Strike Wiki
- Fever Case — Counter-Strike Wiki
- Counter-Strike 2 patches/May 24, 2024 — Counter-Strike Wiki
- items_game.txt — GameTracking-CS2 on GitHub
- Weapon Finishes Guide — Counter-Strike
