What CS:GO Skins You Can Get From Drops

Playing CS:GO for dozens of hours per week will give you at least a few drops. Valve built their system to reward players spending time inside the game, so you will receive a weapon case or a skin every now and then.

CS:GO Items That Can Drop

The value of CS:GO skins ranges from a few cents to tens of thousands of dollars. The skins you will get from drops will almost always be low-value ones. You can expect them to be between $0.1 and $3. You will get a much better item from time to time, but only your account is eligible to receive skin drops.

CS:GO players who own a Prime account are treated better by the system than those with a casual account. You can still get CS:GO cases with a casual account, but you’ll generally be offered low-value ones.

The items you get from a CS:GO drop depend in part on the Active Drop Pool. Just as CS:GO tournaments are played on maps from an Active Duty Map Pool decided by Valve, CS:GO item drops come from a set of options that changes regularly.

But the general rule is that Prime accounts are eligible for better drops than non-Prime accounts. For example, if a new case gets released, as a non-Prime player, you will not receive that weapon case no matter how many hours you play. But as a Prime member, you actually have a chance to get it.

How to Get Case and Skin Drops in CS:GO

When you play CS:GO, the rule is to always finish what you started. If you play a match, the rewards are given to you at the end. Regardless of what game mode you are competing in, stay until the end if you want to receive your prize.

One question that’s often asked is this: will I get something for every X matches I play?

That might be the case, but it’s more likely that Valve’s algorithm is built to give you something for every X hours you play. Otherwise, you could potentially find clever ways of getting more rewards. For example, if you play Bo16 matches, you will be able to complete many more matches per day than if you play Bo30 matches.

So it’s intuitive that Valve will give you something at the end of a match if you’ve played at least N hours that week or possibly even that month. You’ll need to experiment to find out exactly how you get rewarded. But based on experience, it’s clear that Prime accounts receive better and possibly more frequent rewards than non-Prime ones.

Unfortunately, you have no control over what you will get in your next CS:GO drop. It might be a case that you can sell or open using a key. Or it might be a skin. What type of case or skin? That, again, depends on Valve.

Cases and Skins That Can Drop

Generally speaking, anything that costs above a few dollars (for skins) will be a rare drop. And anything that costs above $1 (for cases) will be a rare drop.

The CS:GO cases you will get most frequently are the Prisma 2 Case, the Snakebite Case, the Clutch Case, the Fracture case, and a few others. Most cases fall into the rare drop category, so don’t expect to receive something truly valuable unless you’re playing for many hours per week.

Rare case drops probably happen around 1/10 times. Weapon skins that are better than your usual Mil-Spec drop just as rare. The drop system gives players only a small incentive to play the game for many hours per week. But it gives a slightly higher incentive to create a Prime account.

The cases you get as a Prime user differ from the ones you get otherwise. The average value of a Prime case is much higher than that of a non-Prime case.

CS:GO Skins You Can Get From Drops

For both types of CS:GO accounts, discontinued cases are no longer available via case drops and can only be bought on the Steam Market. 

In some situations, a rare case will cost a lot of money simply because it’s incredibly rare. Some players pay even $50 per case if it can give them a Dragon Lore or some other special weapon skin.

People who play CS:GO for 1000 hours per year may get lucky a few times when they receive skins or cases and will tell you that you can get expensive items. Although that’s true, the probability of getting a random item that is highly valuable is quite small.

If you want to obtain valuable cases and skins, a better strategy is to acquire them at significant discounts. Or to rent them using a platform like Lootbear. Or to buy them at their standard price on the Steam Marketplace.

Graffiti Drops

Apart from the usual skin drops and case drops, you can also get graffiti drops, also known as stickers. Such items are usually quite low, but some are sold for more than $1.

General Considerations

As with anything else, if Valve sees that something has a high value on the Steam Market, its goal is to not allow too many people to obtain it for free. Otherwise, it creates an imbalance in their skin-based economy. Therefore, you shouldn’t rely on spectacular drops when playing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

One thing to remember is that case drops can become very valuable items. But they will require you to purchase a key each time. If you’re willing to spend a few dollars, even a $0.2 case can turn into a skin that costs hundreds.