CS2 Fade Tier List — Fade Percentages by Item
Fade is the cleanest pattern family in the game: one number — the fade percentage — summarizes how much of the item is covered by the pink-purple gradient instead of yellow. The percentage comes from the paint seed, and each item has its own range and its own price curve.
Every tier, seed by seed
The community tier lists, exactly as CSWatcher’s tier rules use them. Pick an item, or look up a pattern number.
Tiers are community rankings of paint seeds; a tier rule matches exactly the seeds listed. Prices are not shown here: they move with every listing.
How fade percentage works
Most fade items roll from roughly 80% up to a 100% "full fade". The market is steeply top-loaded: the difference between 90% and 95% is modest, while 98–100% is where collectors compete and premiums jump. Percentages are per-item — the same seed produces different coverage on different models — so always read the number for the exact item.
Karambit & the knife fades
The Karambit Fade is the family's flagship — a full fade is one of the most liquid high-end knives there is. The M9 Bayonet and Butterfly fades follow the same logic with their own ranges, and the newer knife lines (Talon among them) added fresh full-fade chases with smaller supply.
Glock-18
The affordable entry: the Glock-18 Fade is a pistol-priced classic where the top percentages still carry a clear premium. It's the standard first fade — the market is deep and the tier logic is identical to the knives.
Other fade items
The gradient family keeps growing — pistols, SMGs and knife models added over the years each carry their own seed-to-percentage map. The constant across all of them: sellers who list by wear alone, leaving the percentage unpriced. That's the gap a fade hunter lives in.
What a fade listing is really telling you
Fade is the family where the buyer has the least excuse for getting it wrong, because the whole thesis compresses into one number that anyone can look up. Which makes the listings interesting in a specific way: a seller who quotes the percentage has already priced it, and a seller who doesn't usually hasn't. The second kind is where the opportunity lives. Two other things are worth checking before you get excited. Wear still matters — fades sit on knives and pistols whose finish scuffs, and a high percentage on a scratched example is a worse buy than a slightly lower one that is clean. And the colour balance is not fully captured by the percentage: two examples with the same number can distribute the pink and purple differently, and collectors have preferences the number does not express. Read the render, not just the figure.
How the top of the range trades
Full fades behave like a separate item from the rest of the family. Supply at the very top is genuinely small, demand for it is steady rather than spiky, and the result is one of the more liquid corners of pattern collecting — a full-fade Karambit is a recognised thing that a lot of people want, which is not true of most grails. Lower down, the market flattens out fast: below the top few percent, buyers largely stop paying a premium and you are trading an ordinary example of the skin. That shape is worth internalising before you chase a mid-range percentage expecting it to appreciate.
Hunting high fades
Name the fade items you care about, the percentage floor you want and the most you would pay, and stop opening inspect links yourself. When something lists at a top percentage while the price says "ordinary fade", CSWatcher tells you — or, on CSFloat, buys it inside your ceiling — while a manual browser is still deciding whether that one is worth checking. It runs that watch on every marketplace it covers, which matters here because a seller who has not priced the percentage rarely picks the market where someone would notice.
What is a good fade percentage?
Most fade items roll from roughly 80% up to a 100% "full fade" — the higher the percentage, the more of the finish is covered by the pink-purple gradient instead of yellow. Premiums concentrate in the last few percent: 98–100% is where collectors compete.
How do I check a fade percentage?
The percentage is derived from the paint seed. CSFloat shows every listing's seed and inspect link, and community fade calculators map seed to percentage per item — check the exact model, because the same seed fades differently across items.
Is a 100% fade always the most expensive?
Usually, but not automatically — condition still matters, and on some items collectors also chase specific looks (like even color balance) over the raw percentage. A clean high-float full fade can lose to a pristine 95%.