How to buy CS2 cases: Best cases to open, odds, knives, more

CS:GO cases, or now CS2 cases, can be tempting to open, but before you do, there are a few things you should know. Here’s how cases work in CS2, how to buy and open cases – and whether you should in the first place.

Counter-Strike is famous for its competitive 5v5 matches, smooth gameplay, and flourishing esports scene – but the game is also run on an in-game economy worth billions.

All of this comes from cases, that you can open for a small cost and potentially receive an expensive item.

In 2023, with the launch of CS2, there has been a resurgence in case openings, with more cases being opened every month than ever before, and big streamers trying their luck to get a knife. But, are cases worth opening, and if you want to, how do you get them?

Contents

• How to get cases in CS2
• How to open CS2 cases
• CS2 case odds
• Best cases to open
• Knives in CS2 cases
• Most Expensive CS2 cases
• Cheapest CS2 cases

How to get cases in CS2

There are two ways to get a case in Counter-Strike 2. We will explain both of these methods.

Case drops

The first method is free, and requires you to simply play the game. The first time you rank up your account level in a week, you will receive a weekly drop – you can then choose a case as one of your rewards. The case you get will be entirely random, but there is a 99% chance it comes from the ‘active drop pool’. These are currently: Revolution Case, Recoil Case, Dreams & Nightmares Case, Snakebite Case, and Fracture Case.

There is a 1% chance you will receive a ‘rare’ case drop, which will typically be a more expensive case. We will explain case prices later.

Buying cases

The second method to get cases, and the one you will need to use if you want to open more than one case, is to buy them. You can buy cases from the Steam Market, or from third-party websites.

Once you buy a case, or multiple, they will be added to your inventory, ready to be opened. you can buy any case you want this way, and see what skins and knives are available in each one.

You can also resell the cases back on the market, if you decide against opening them – but remember there is a 15% fee, so you won’t get the full purchase price back unless the price of the case has increased.

How to open cases in CS2

Once you have a case or cases that you want to open, there is one more thing you need before you can open them: a key.

Each case will require a single key, specific to that case. You can buy the key from Steam directly, just prior to opening the case. But note: Keys cannot be refunded or sold on the Steam market – so don’t buy them unless you plan to use them.

How much do CS2 case keys cost?

Case keys cost a flat price of $2.49, or the equivalent in your currency. Do not buy keys from the Steam Market – they will be much more expensive! Buy them directly from the in-game store instead.

If you do buy a key from the Steam Market, it means it is tradeable, because it is from before the update when Valve made all keys untradeable. You should simply sell it on the Steam Market again to recoup your cost.

CS2 case odds

The odds of opening cases and getting a rare item, such as a covert skin, knife, or gloves, are of course, not very high.

Most cases you open, you will receive a ‘Mil-Spec’ (blue rarity) item, and sometimes a Restricted (purple) or Classified (pink). You can see the case odds in CS2 here:

Skin Rarity	Non-StatTrak	StatTrak
Mil-Spec (Blue)	79.92%	7.99%
Restricted (Purple)	15.98%	1.59%
Classified (Pink)	3.2%	0.32%
Covert (Red)	0.64%	0.064%
Rare Special Item (Gold)	0.26%	0.026%

We haven’t mentioned StatTrak items yet. Every item in a case has a 10% chance to be ‘StatTrak’. This adds a kill counter to the weapon or knife (but not gloves, because you can’t kill enemies with gloves!).

Are cases worth it?

As you can see, 95% of cases that you open will give you a Blue or Purple skin, and most of the time, it will be a Blue. Blue and Purple skins are always the cheapest, typically ranging from a few cents to a few dollars at most, except in some rare examples.

Given the price of the case and the key, you lose, on average, 60-70% of your money with any case. So, if you spent $100 on cases, you will receive approximately $30-$40 in value, with average luck.

Of course, it’s possible you get very lucky, and open a Knife with your first case, making a massive profit. But, the odds of this are very low.

Instead, you should simply buy the skins that you want from the Steam Market or third-party sites, rather than spending money on cases.

Best CS2 cases to open

If you can’t resist the urge to try your luck on some cases though, despite the bad odds, then you should at least try to open cases with the best return possible.

Based on the average price of skins in the case, compared to the price of the case & key, these are the best CS2 cases to open in 2023:

Case	Price (+ Key)	ROI %
Operation Wildfire Case	$2.58 (+$2.49)	61.07%
eSports 2013 Winter Case	$9.16 (+$2.49)	59.32%
CS:GO Weapon Case 2	$16.54 (+$2.49)	56.74%
CS:GO Weapon Case 3	$9.89 (+$2.49)	54.38%
Huntsman Weapon Case	$10.77 (+$2.49)	52.93%
Shadow Case	$1.18 (+$2.49)	52.78%
Recoil Case	$0.54 (+$2.49)	51.73%
Shattered Web Case	$4.70 (+$2.49)	51.01%
Falchion Case	$1.21 (+$2.49)	50.98%

Updated: October 2023

Even with these “best” cases to open though, you can see that you will still, on average, lose about half of your money opening these.

If you are looking for the “most profitable” CS:GO cases – just know that there aren’t any. In order to profit from opening cases, you would simply need to get very lucky.

Knives in CS2 cases

The biggest appeal about opening cases is, obviously, the knives. On average, you will get a knife (or gloves) from every 400 or so cases, with a 0.26% chance.

However, not all knives are available in every case. For example, the coveted Butterfly Knife, the most expensive type of knife, is only in three specific cases. Here are some of the most desired knives in CS2, and which cases they are in.

Butterfly Knife cases

• Operation Breakout Case
• Dreams & Nightmares Case
• Operation Riptide Case

Karambit cases

• Gamma Case
• Gamma 2 Case
• Chroma Case
• Chroma 2 Case
• Chroma 3 Case
• Revolver Case
• Operation Vanguard Weapon Case
• Operation Pheonix Weapon Case
• eSports 2014 Summer Case
• Winter Offensive Weapon Case
• CS:GO Weapon Case 3
• eSports 2013 Winter Case
• CS:GO Weapon Case 2
• eSports 2013 Case
• Operation Bravo Case
• CS:GO Weapon Case

M9 Bayonet cases

• Gamma Case
• Gamma 2 Case
• Chroma Case
• Chroma 2 Case
• Chroma 3 Case
• Revolver Case
• Operation Vanguard Weapon Case
• Operation Pheonix Weapon Case
• eSports 2014 Summer Case
• Winter Offensive Weapon Case
• CS:GO Weapon Case 3
• eSports 2013 Winter Case
• CS:GO Weapon Case 2
• eSports 2013 Case
• Operation Bravo Case
• CS:GO Weapon Case

Skeleton Knife cases

• Fracture Case
• Shattered Web Case

Pandora’s Box Gloves cases

• Glove Case
• Operation Hydra Case

Vice Gloves cases

• Clutch Case
• Revolution Case

Most expensive CS2 cases

1. CS:GO Weapon Case: $81.95
2. Operation Bravo Case: $56.64
3. eSports 2013 Case: $47.99
4. Operation Hydra Case: $27.73
5. CS:GO Weapon Case 2: $18
6. CS:GO weapon Case 3: $10.99
7. Huntsman Weapon Case: $10.46
8. eSports 2013 Winter Case: $8.87
9. eSports 2014 Case: $7.71
10. Winter Offensive Weapon Case: $6.99

The most expensive CS2 cases are typically so because they are old, rare, or even discontinued. This means that every time one is opened, there are fewer in supply.

Cheapest CS2 Cases

1. Snakebite Case: $0.37
2. Recoil Case: $0.57
3. Fracture Case: $0.69
4. Clutch Case: $0.80
5. Prisma Case: $0.81
6. CS20 Case: $0.89
7. Prisma 2 Case: $0.93
8. Danger Zone Case: $0.96
9. Horizon Case: $1.09
10. Shadow Case: $1.18

The cheapest cases usually include less desirable skins, or are in abundance, meaning they are not very rare at all. These prices will fluctuate on the Steam Market, but are generally around this price, as of September 2023.

Hopefully, though, it is clear that opening cases will not be a profitable endeavor. If you see friends or big streamers getting lucky and opening knives and gloves, it is still likely that they have made a loss overall due to the number of cases opened.

You may see stories like a new player opening a knife worth over $150,000, but remember the odds of this are in the millions, and you would be just as well playing the lottery.

With Counter-Strike 2 replacing CS:GO, case openings are likely to continue to increase, but remember the golden rule: just buy the skin you want, instead of buying the case.