CS2 Marble Fade Explained

What is Marble Fade in CS2?

Marble Fade is a knife finish with swirls of red, yellow and blue over a chrome blade. The game's item text says the knife "has been painted with black and silver metallic paints using a marbleizing medium, then candy coated in three colors" (ByMykel item dataset).

The basics:

• 18 knife models. Every model except the Classic Knife and the Kukri Knife.
• Factory New and Minimal Wear only. The float range is 0.00 to 0.08.
• Chroma set of cases. It drops from the Chroma, Chroma 2, Chroma 3, Spectrum, Spectrum 2, Prisma, Prisma 2 and Fever Cases, alongside Doppler and Tiger Tooth. Our knife finishes guide compares it with the other finishes.

Every copy places the texture differently. Valve's Weapon Finishes guide says each paint gets random offsets and rotations when it is applied, and that placement is stored as the pattern index. On Marble Fade, it decides how much of each color lands on the blade, especially the tip. That is where Fire and Ice comes from.

How much does a Marble Fade knife cost?

Here is every Marble Fade knife, cheapest first, with the lowest cash listing, what it actually sold for on Skinport over 30 days, and how the Factory New price moved over nine days.

Source: CSRated price snapshot and daily history, 24 September to 2 October 2026 (lowest cash listing across five markets); Skinport sale medians for the 30 days to 2 October 2026.

Three things to read from it:

• Factory New is the cheaper wear on every model. Minimal Wear on Marble Fade only covers floats 0.07 to 0.08, so there are few copies. The Karambit had 375 Factory New cash listings and 57 Minimal Wear. The look is almost the same, so Factory New is the better buy.
• Prices can move fast. The Stiletto Knife fell 16% in nine days, and its 30-day median sale sits well above today's floor. The Butterfly Knife rose 14%. Check the item's price history before you buy.
• Steam costs much more. The Factory New Karambit listed at $1,505.15 on the Steam Market, paid in Steam Wallet money, against $932.33 on the cheapest cash market.

What is a Fire and Ice Marble Fade?

Fire and Ice is a Marble Fade whose blade shows only red and blue, with no yellow. CSGOSKINS.GG defines it as a pattern "entirely (or almost entirely) covered in red and blue, without any yellow inclusions."

Community lists grade Fire and Ice by how much red shows, using "Max" ranks. On the Karambit, CSGOSKINS.GG puts one seed, 412, alone in the top "1st Max" group, then ten seeds in the "2nd Max" group: 16, 146, 241, 359, 393, 541, 602, 649, 688 and 701. Its groups run down to "10th Max", plus "Max Fake" (noticeable yellow) and other subgroups.

Other names you will see, from CS-Resource's Marble Fade guide:

These are community labels, not anything in the game. The item name never changes.

Do the Fire and Ice lists agree?

Not fully, and that matters when someone asks a premium. CSGOSKINS.GG's Karambit list holds about 180 seeds across all its Fire and Ice groups, which would be roughly 18% of the 1,001 possible patterns. CS-Resource puts the Fire and Ice share on the Karambit at 12.3%. The two lists simply draw the line between "Fire and Ice" and "almost" in different places. They even disagree on the ideal: CSGOSKINS.GG ranks the most red highest, while CS-Resource describes the ideal as equal red and blue.

CS-Resource also says only four models can show a real Fire and Ice: the Karambit, Bayonet, Flip Knife and Gut Knife. On other knives, collectors judge the color of the tip instead.

The practical rule: 412 sits at the top of both lists we checked. A seed that only one list calls Fire and Ice is a weaker claim, and you should pay less for it.

Why don't price trackers show Fire and Ice prices?

Because the market name is the same for every pattern. "Karambit | Marble Fade (Factory New)" covers seed 412 and a plain tricolor alike, so any price feed, including ours, sees one item.

The sales data shows what that means. The Factory New Karambit's 30-day median sale on Skinport was $975.45 across 44 sales, only about 5% above the lowest listing. The typical buyer pays for an ordinary copy. Fire and Ice copies are priced one by one, and those prices are not in any public feed we use. We did not find a recent pattern-level sale price from a source we would cite, so we do not quote one.

That cuts both ways. If you own a Fire and Ice, an instant sale at the market price undersells it. If you are buying, a seller's "Fire and Ice price" is only an asking price until you check the seed.

Is a StatTrak Marble Fade worth it?

Often, yes, because the extra cost is small on the expensive models. Here is the Factory New StatTrak premium for each knife.

Source: CSRated price snapshot, 2 October 2026.

On a Butterfly Knife, StatTrak added $63 to a $1,260 knife. On Shadow Daggers it added $45 to a $74 knife. In percentage terms, the cheapest models carry the biggest StatTrak premium. One catch: StatTrak copies are scarcer, so there are fewer seeds to choose from. The Karambit had 92 StatTrak Factory New listings against 375 normal ones, which matters if you are hunting a Fire and Ice. Our StatTrak guide has the full numbers across all knives and guns.

Which Marble Fade knives are easiest to resell?

Look at the sales count in the price table. Over 30 days on Skinport, the Paracord Knife (98 sales), Talon Knife (97), Bowie Knife (88) and Survival Knife (81) sold most often in Factory New. The Shadow Daggers (32), Navaja (34) and Gut Knife (35) sold least. More sales mean a buyer is easier to find at a fair price when you want to sell. If you might sell within a few months, a frequently traded model is the safer pick at a similar price.

How do you buy a Marble Fade without overpaying?

1. Pick the model first. It sets most of the price: $73.82 on Shadow Daggers against $1,260.46 on a Butterfly Knife for the same finish and wear.
2. Buy Factory New. It is cheaper than Minimal Wear on every model and looks nearly identical.
3. For an ordinary copy, pay near the floor. Median sales sat close to the lowest listing on most models.
4. For Fire and Ice, get the seed. Copy the inspect link and read the pattern with an inspect tool; our inspect guide shows how. Then check the seed on more than one list for that exact model.
5. Look at the tip and the playside yourself. Inspect the knife in the game. A screenshot can be from a different copy.
6. Check StatTrak. On most models it added 10% to 25% (see the table above).

Common Marble Fade mistakes

• Paying a Fire and Ice premium for a near miss. Yellow on the blade means it is not Fire and Ice on most lists, whatever the title says.
• Using a Karambit seed list for another knife. The same seed lands differently on each model.
• Buying Minimal Wear for the name. On a finish capped at 0.08 float, Minimal Wear costs more for almost no visible difference.
• Ignoring short-term moves. Two models moved by 14% to 16% in nine days in our data, and a third by almost 10%.

For how pattern, float and finish fit together, read the pattern index guide. For every Karambit finish and its price, see our Karambit page, and the fade glossary entry covers the plain Fade finish. The float checker shows the float range of any skin.