With the release of CS2, there have been major changes in skin pricing over the past few months. I’ve seen a few of my AWP skins rise in price over time as well. But, with new players coming into the game – which budget AWP skins should they get? Here’s our take on the best cheap skins for the AWP in CS2.
AWP | Safari Mesh
Price: $0.09-0.17
View on Community Market
Alright, this is not the best looking skin on this list, but it certainly is the cheapest. With the price running a few cents at max, this AWP skin transforms your trusty sniper rifle into one you’d see Rambo holding. With a spray-painted mesh and cardboard cutouts that act as stencils, it isn’t the shiniest or the brightest, but it certainly looks better than the default skin.
A fan of anatomy? This one should match your taste. Featuring a dull silver with a brightened crimson shade, the Capillary’s prime focus is on its intricate network of wire like paint, present on the face of the gun extending all the way to the stock.
Another green skin features a snake on the entirety of the skin, of considerably larger size than the Atheris. It doesn’t have much going for it other than the snake, with the entire skin featuring a darker green in places where the snake isn’t present. It’s definitely not our favorite CS2 AWP skin, but it certainly is cheap.
A skin straight out of bootleg Cyberpunk 2077, the Phobos features an industrial yellow with a faux battery-level sign dead center in the gun. The skin’s base color is a slightly light black, with small patterns of yellow emanating throughout the skin, particularly around the very end, where they form a striped pattern coupled with the black.
Beginning to feel like an AWP God? Well, a skin that shares the same name, for the most part, has got you covered. While cheap, the Worm God is an iconic skin featuring a white base and a golden-black worm that’s cluttered around the center of the gun, going right up to the trigger. It looks extremely fresh in CS2, thanks to updated lighting that makes it look very bright.
Color splats galore, the AWP PAW features a renaissance of different imagery, almost thrown in platoons. Featuring orange, crimson, gray, and white shades – the PAW doesn’t bring much sense to it, but isn’t chaos what makes a CS2 skin truly special in the first place? With CS2 favoring brighter shades, the PAW looks exceptionally great on most maps.
Coming out of the Broken Fang case, the Exoskeleton is one of the most popular CS2 skins out there. It features a dark mosaic with engraved green templates that deploy stencil-like designs to really make the Exoskeleton gleam through. To me, it looks like it’s out of a Predator movie – and it is a great skin to buy, considering the price.
The Black Nile is perhaps the most royal looking skin in this list. It has silver-colored swirls present on the entirety of the gun, with a lighter gray base color accompanying it. With slight instances of gold, using the AWP in CS2 can’t ever feel more graceful, which makes the skin a great buy, especially considering the price.
Straight out of Castlevania, the Mortis features a skull at the barrel of the skin with a gold gradient following the entire skin. With a price of around $2, the skin has significantly increased in price after the release of CS2 but still remains reasonable. With an image of a dinosaur in line art and the number 13 inscribed in Roman numerals, the skin has a unique allure that not a lot of others seem to match.
Coming in at around $3, the Atheris features a serpent slithering around the entirety of the gun, with neon green accents and a navy blue to follow. The gun is one of the more duller skins we’re mentioning in the list – but the snake makes it look really cool, especially in brighter maps like Dust 2, where the color tends to shine out.
