CS:GO community in a frenzy after 18-year-old rookie pulls $200k knife: "I don't come from money – it'll help out my parents"

Knife skins in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive have become exorbitantly expensive over the years, as many skins are now worth thousands of dollars. Luckily, one newcomer to the game recently unboxed a skin that happened to be worth around $200,000, two days after unboxing their first case.

Skins in Counter-Strike have become so coveted and valuable to collectors due to the extreme rarity of certain skins. Many skins have a value that exceeds thousands of dollars, but the cream of the crop is undoubtedly the blue gem Karambit Case Hardened knife skin that has an estimated value of over $150,000. The skin is only one of 12 in the entire world - which potentially explains that eye-watering sum of money - and one young rookie pulled the coveted knife.

This kid had only been playing CS for 3 days, he had 31 hours of playtime, and his first knife opened is one of the rarest ever in the gameA 387 pattern Karambit blue gem with a value of AT LEAST $150,000… pic.twitter.com/EuqLWNkwE9July 7, 2023

Better yet, the 18-year-old player who unboxed the ultra-rare knife only had a couple dozen hours of playtime in the game, compared to some Counter-Strike skin collectors who have spent many thousands of hours hunting for rare loot.

CS:GO streamer and skin expert Ohnepixel Raw chatted with the fortunate newcomer, who said the skin’s speculative price was “a lot” of money to him. “I didn’t really come from money,” said the lucky player, “$200,000… it’ll help out my parents.” The rare draw almost never happened, though, since the newcomer revealed he jumped into the shooter from rival Valorant recently. In fact, he only began to unbox cases with his friend “two days” before winning the valuable Karambit skin. That’s essentially the CS:GO version of winning the lottery on the first try.

Longtime Counter-Strike players can keep their heads held high, regardless of case winnings or losings, since a sequel to the perennial favourite shooter is coming this year. Counter-Strike 2 is set to release sometime this summer, and the game will thankfully carry over all of your rare cosmetics and equipment from Global Offensive.

Here’s how to access the Counter-Strike 2 closed limited test, just in case you’re feeling impatient.

Kaan freelances for various websites including Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and this one, Gamesradar. He particularly enjoys writing about spooky indies, throwback RPGs, and anything that's vaguely silly. Also has an English Literature and Film Studies degree that he'll soon forget.