What are Crafts (Trade Up Contracts) in CS2?
In CS2, players always had plenty of ways to surprise themselves with a new skin, but the real magic begins when they decide the fate of a drop. This is precisely the opportunity provided by trade up contracts—crafting in which players collect several items to receive something of higher rarity. And after the latest update, this mechanic has become much more important than before.
At its core, crafting is the exchange of several skins of the same rarity for a single item of a higher tier. For a long time, the highest level of trade-ups was limited to regular Covert skins, with no way to move up. But now Valve has given players a much more compelling opportunity: exchanging Covert skins for knives and gloves. Essentially, red items have become a resource for creating gold ones, something previously unheard of in the game.
This is why crafting has now become interesting not only for beginners but also for traders. It’s a way to refresh your inventory, try to catch a rare finish, and simply experience that pre-contract tension, the familiar moment when you press a button and wait to see what the game decides to give you.
How Our CS2 Craft Simulator Works?
Our CS craft simulator is designed to closely replicate the logic of in-game contracts. It doesn’t try to guess the outcome—it calculates everything fairly and shows you the real picture before you risk your skins. Below is a brief overview of what’s under the hood.
Connected to the SkinsBook Database
The CS2 craft simulator is powered by SkinsBook, a large library containing thousands of weapon skins. All items are up-to-date: prices are updated automatically, and the system is always up-to-date with what’s happening on the CS2 market. This means you see real prices and don’t waste time on manual calculations.
Real-Time Craft Odds Calculation
As soon as you add skins to a contract, the system instantly calculates the odds.
It takes into account:
- skin rarity;
- which collections are involved;
- skin ratio;
- the average float of all incoming items;
- and how the percentages are distributed among possible outcomes.
The float is calculated the same way as in real CS2 crafting—using a simple arithmetic mean. No tricks, everything is transparent.
Cost Analysis for Every Craft
A particularly useful feature of the simulator is its cost calculator.
The simulator shows:
- the cost of your crafting set;
- the cost of the possible results;
- and the profit or loss expected in each scenario.
This helps you understand in advance whether the contract is worth the money or whether it’s almost guaranteed to result in a loss.
Float Prediction & Output Float Estimator
The float value in a contract matters more than many people realize, so the simulator includes a dedicated tool that helps you understand the final quality of an item in advance. The system takes the float value of all five skins and calculates the average—just like CS2 itself. This lets you immediately see whether your contract will be worth Minimal Wear or Factory New, or whether the result will inevitably degrade to a lower quality. This handy hint helps you avoid wasting money and understand what you can realistically expect from crafting.
Result Possibilities Display
The most convenient thing about the CS2 craft simulator is that it immediately displays the entire picture of possible outcomes. It’s not just a list, but a visual representation of all the items that can drop from the selected set, with precise percentage chances, current prices, and an understanding of which results will bring profit and which will result in loss. This makes crafting no longer a blind risk: you see everything in advance and make informed decisions. This is exactly how a fair simulator in CS2 should work.
How to Craft Items in CS2 (Knives, Gloves & Covert Skins)
After a major update, the crafting system in CS2 became much more extensive than the usual trade-ups before Covert. Players can now craft not only red skins but also knives and gloves, using Covert items as fuel. This has sharply increased the price of crafting, but also made it much more interesting, especially for those who have long wanted to obtain a rare finish but didn’t want to open dozens of cases.
How to Craft Covert Skins in CS2?
To obtain a Covert skin, you only need three things: suitable entry skins, an understanding of collections, and at least a basic understanding of the odds. In practice, it works like this: you take 10 Classified skins, make sure they’re from collections that yield the desired Covert, and create a trade-up contract.
When it comes to the most accessible ways to obtain Covert skins, players most often focus on collections where pink items are less expensive. The situation varies across cases: sometimes these are older lines where Classified skins aren’t in high demand, while other times, it’s newer cases where the market hasn’t yet overheated. This allows you to obtain a Covert skin for less than the standard price without entering into unprofitable contracts.
However, the risks remain. Even if Classified skins are inexpensive, the chances of getting a specific Covert skin are usually low—especially when a collection offers several red options. Therefore, Covert crafting always balances the chance of snagging a rare, expensive skin with the likelihood of getting the most affordable option from the pool.
How to Craft Knives in CS2 (New System Explained)
After the CS2 crafting update, knife crafting became part of the general trade-up system, and now to obtain a gold item, you need to use five Covert skins. The principle is the same: a collection of input items forms a pool of possible knives. If all five skins are from the same collection, the odds are distributed among its finishes—usually 13-24 variations, so the chance of a specific finish rarely exceeds 4-8%.
If you mix collections, the odds are divided proportionally by the number of skins. For example, three Covert items from the knife collection and two from the glove collection will yield approximately 60% for knives and 40% for gloves. When using the CS2 skin crafter it’s also important to remember StatTrak: it only works for knife crafting, and all five items must be either StatTrak-enabled or normal.
The float value of the finished knife is calculated as the average value of the input items, but it doesn’t affect the finish itself—this is why even heavily worn Covert skins can yield, for example, a Tiger Tooth, which simply doesn’t exist below MW.
How to Craft Gloves in CS2?
Glove crafting works almost identically to the knife system. To obtain a gold item while using the CS2 craft maker, you need to combine five Covert skins from glove collections. The collection determines which gloves can drop and what finishes to expect. Within a single series, there are typically many variations: several models and four paint jobs each, making the chance of getting a specific pair quite low.
StatTrak gloves don’t exist, so these items aren’t included in crafting. If you mix collections, the chances are divided proportionally by the number of skins added: some will go to gloves, some to knives. Ultimately, glove crafting remains just as risky as knife crafting, just with an even wider pool of possible outcomes.
How the CS2 Crafting Update Changed Trade-Ups?
The crafting system update was one of the most noticeable changes to the CS2 economy. The update patch brought changes to the trade-up mechanics. The developer reconsidered the role of float values, the chance calculation scheme, and introduced a new feature that surprised many players: the ability to obtain knives and gloves using Covert skins. This gave traditional contracts a completely different meaning, forcing players to rethink their approach to CS2 crafting and assess risks that had previously been virtually nonexistent.
Changes to Float Mechanics
After the update, the calculation of the final float value has become more accurate. This indicator is no longer subject to rounding, and errors are eliminated. The quality of the new skin is based solely on the average value of the input skins. The absence of hidden calculation mechanisms makes it much easier to predict the outcome of a contract.
Skin Input Restrictions
Restrictions on incoming items have also changed.
CS2 crafting has become more stringent:
- StatTrak and regular skins cannot be mixed;
- if StatTrak is used, it is only for knife contracts;
- stickers, even expensive ones, disappear completely during crafting, and their value is not taken into account;
Collection status has become the deciding factor (it is what forms the resulting pool). These restrictions have forced players to choose skins for CS2 crafts more carefully and avoid using items that could lose value after trading.
Chance Distribution Adjustments
Valve has reworked the distribution of chances within collections. Now, all variants in the pool have the fairest percentages possible (every knife or pair of gloves has an equal chance). This has made rare finishes like Sapphire, Ruby, Fade, or Black Pearl even harder to obtain: the wider the pool, the lower the chance of getting the exact variant. As a result, many expensive knives have become even rarer and more valuable.
Impact on Knife & Glove Crafting
The biggest changes affected gold items. With the introduction of knife and glove crafting, red skins immediately increased in price (they became the primary resource for these contracts). Knives and gloves themselves initially dropped in price, but the market quickly leveled out.
Due to the large number of possible finishes, knife and glove crafting has become much riskier: there are dozens of possible outcomes for a single result, making it even more difficult to achieve a high-value finish. However, this rarity has also made the most sought-after models even more valuable.
Why Use Our CS2 Craft Calculator?
Our CS2 craft simulator helps you see the real picture before any craft. It shows precise odds, the cost per attempt, the potential profit, and the final float—everything that’s difficult to calculate manually. This lets you understand in advance whether a contract is worth the investment and avoids situations where the result turns out worse than expected. CS2 (CS:GO) crafting simulator is a simple way to craft consciously, rather than blindly.