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CS2 Trade-Up Guide

CS2 Knife Trade-Up Scanner - Find Covert to Knife Contracts

Knife trade-ups are the most searched Gold contracts because knife outputs are liquid and some finishes have huge Factory New premiums. TradeUpX scans the eligible case pools and ranks the best Covert to knife setups by real EV.

Scan Knife Trade-Ups →
5x CovertInput Rarity
KnifeOutput Rarity
Case dependentTypical ROI Range
EUR 150-2,000+Typical Cost

Best Knife Trade-Up Strategy

The strongest knife contracts usually combine three things: affordable Covert inputs, a valuable knife pool and output floats that land in Factory New or Minimal Wear. The scanner checks all three at the same time.

Butterfly, Karambit, M9 Bayonet, Skeleton, Nomad and other knife pools can behave very differently. Sorting by EV is safer than sorting by the single most expensive possible output.

Factory New Knife Targeting

Many premium knife finishes have tight float ranges. A low normalized input average can turn a contract into Factory New output odds, especially on finishes like Doppler, Gamma Doppler, Fade and Marble Fade.

The Gold scanner predicts the output float per knife, not just the average input float, so you can see whether the expensive outputs land in the wear tier you are targeting.

Which Case Pools Have the Best Knife Odds

Not every Covert collection can produce a knife. A Covert to Gold contract only outputs a knife or glove when its inputs come from a case pool that contains the rare special items, so the first filter is always eligibility, not price.

Among eligible pools, the best value usually comes from cheaper Covert inputs paired with a knife pool that has a high price floor. A pool where even the worst knife still sells well protects your downside far better than one where a single jackpot finish carries the entire expected value.

Read EV, Not the Jackpot Price

It is tempting to judge a knife contract by its most expensive possible output. That number is almost always a low-probability result. Expected value weights every possible knife by its real drop chance and price after Steam's fee, which is the number that actually predicts long-run profit.

Sort by EV and ROI rather than by the top output. A contract with a +8% ROI across the whole pool is a better bet than one that is only profitable if you hit a 2% jackpot knife.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Can I target a specific knife?
No trade-up can guarantee one exact knife. You can only choose the case pool and float strategy. TradeUpX shows the probability of each possible knife output.
Are Doppler phases calculated separately?
Yes. Phase-sensitive knife finishes are priced separately when data is available, instead of using one blended Doppler price.
How many skins does a knife trade-up need?
Five Covert (red) weapon skins from an eligible case pool. The contract then has a chance to output a knife or glove from that pool instead of another weapon skin.
Why is my knife contract negative EV?
Usually the combined cost of the five Covert inputs is too high relative to the probability-weighted value of the knife pool. Lower the input cost, or choose a pool with a higher price floor so the common outputs still hold value.

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