Collections
A collection groups skins that came out together under one theme or event. Most gun skins belong to a collection, and it is shown on each skin page in the wiki. For example, the AK-47 | Redline and the AWP | Asiimov are both part of The Phoenix Collection.
The collections page lists every collection with its release year, when it's known, and its full set of skins grouped by rarity.
Weapon cases
A weapon case is a container that drops in the game and needs a key to open. Opening it gives one item from its list. Most cases are linked to their own collection: the Operation Phoenix Weapon Case to The Phoenix Collection, the Spectrum Case to The Spectrum Collection, the Horizon Case to The Horizon Collection, and so on.
Each case page in the wiki shows the case's contents grouped by rarity, from the lower grades up to Covert, plus the year the case came out. Browse them on the cases page.
The special group: knives and gloves
Knives and gloves don't belong to collections. Cases list them in a separate group that the game calls the Exceedingly Rare Special Item. The wiki shows this group as its own block on the case page instead of mixing it with the regular tiers.
The same special item can appear in many cases:
- The Karambit | Fade, Karambit | Case Hardened and M9 Bayonet | Crimson Web are each listed in many cases, from the CS:GO Weapon Case to the Revolver Case.
- The Doppler knives such as the Karambit | Doppler, and the Bayonet | Marble Fade, are listed in the Chroma Case, the Chroma 2 Case and the Chroma 3 Case.
- The Butterfly Knife | Doppler comes from the Spectrum Case and the Spectrum 2 Case instead.
- Several gloves, such as the Sport Gloves | Vice, are listed in the Clutch Case and the Revolution Case, while the Sport Gloves | Pandora's Box come from the Glove Case and the Operation Hydra Case.
So when you look for a knife or gloves, check the skin page: it lists every case that contains them.
Collections without a case
Not every collection has a weapon case. Some of them reached players in other ways, for example through tournament souvenir packages. Some examples:
- The AWP | Dragon Lore belongs to The Cobblestone Collection, whose skins came from Cobblestone souvenir packages at several tournaments.
- The Desert Eagle | Blaze belongs to The Dust Collection, the Glock-18 | Fade to The Assault Collection, the Glock-18 | Gamma Doppler to The 2021 Train Collection and the Negev | Mjölnir to The Norse Collection. None of these collections has a weapon case of its own.
This also explains why these skins have no StatTrak™ versions: StatTrak™ comes with weapon cases. The StatTrak and Souvenir guide covers this in more detail.
What the wiki doesn't calculate
Case pages list what a case contains. They don't estimate how often any item appears, and we don't derive that from the size of the list. If you see a list of contents, treat it as a list, not as a forecast.
Game cases and SHOT cases
The cases section of this wiki is about Counter-Strike 2 game cases. SHOT also has its own cases on the site. They are a separate thing: their contents and rules are set by SHOT, not by the game. Some skin pages have a separate block that shows which SHOT cases include the skin. It's clearly marked and kept apart from the game case information, so you always know which kind of case you're looking at.
Quick summary
- A collection is a themed set of skins; a case is a container tied to one.
- Case contents are grouped by rarity, with knives or gloves in a separate special group.
- One knife finish can be listed in many cases.
- Some collections have no case and come from other sources.
- Game cases and SHOT cases are different things.