CS2 Knife Trade Up Guide

How the knife trade up works

Put five Covert skins into a trade up contract and you get one knife or pair of gloves. Before October 2025 Covert was the top of the ladder: the only way to get a knife was to unbox one (about a 0.26% chance per case) or buy one.

The key rule: the result comes from the rare "gold" pool of the case your Covert skin belongs to. A Covert from a case whose rare pool is, say, Chroma-finish Karambits, Bayonets and Flip Knives can only give one of those. A Covert from a glove case can only give gloves.

Knife trade up odds

Odds work like a normal trade up. Each input is a ticket for its own case's pool, and each item in that pool shares the case's share equally:

Rare pools are big. One case can hold several knife types, each in a dozen or more finishes. So the odds of a specific knife in a specific finish are often around 1–2%. That is why the average value of the whole pool matters far more than the one knife you hope to hit.

Why the pool average is everything

Knife finishes vary enormously in price. In the same pool, a Doppler or Fade can be worth many times a Safari Mesh, Boreal Forest or Scorched version of the same knife. A trade up aimed at a Karambit can easily land on a cheap finish of a less popular knife.

1. List every item in the pool of each case you're using.
2. Price each item at the wear it will realistically come out at.
3. Weight by probability to get the expected value (EV).
4. Compare EV (after selling fees) with the cost of your five Covert inputs.

Since the update, demand for Covert skins as knife-trade-up fuel has pushed their prices up. Knife and glove prices fell at the same time. Many "obvious" contracts are now roughly break-even, and good ones come and go as prices move.

Float in knife trade ups

The output float follows the same idea as normal trade ups. The average of your inputs' normalized floats is mapped onto the knife finish's own float range. Low-float Coverts cost more but push the knife toward Factory New or Minimal Wear, which can be worth a lot more. Some finishes (Doppler, Fade, Marble Fade) only exist in the low wear tiers anyway. Details: trade up float guide.

Finding the cheapest knife trade up

• Start from cheap Covert skins in cases that do have a knife or glove pool. Older, heavily opened cases usually have the cheapest Coverts.
• Look at the pool floor, not the ceiling. A pool where even the worst result is worth close to your input cost is safer than one with a jackpot and lots of duds.
• Mixing cases changes your odds between the two pools. You can use it to steer toward the better pool.
• Use Field-Tested/Well-Worn inputs when the knife finishes you're targeting don't gain much from low wear. Pay for low float only when it moves the result into a pricier wear tier.

Things to keep in mind

• Positive EV is an average over many contracts. On a single contract you'll usually get a mid- or low-value result.
• Knife and Covert prices are volatile, and big updates can move them sharply.
• Only spend what you can afford to lose. A trade up is a random outcome, like opening a case.

Frequently asked questions