Nova | Koi (Minimal Wear)

The Nova | Koi (Minimal Wear, MW) is a Restricted shotgun skin decorated with variegated red-and-white koi scales. Minimal Wear keeps the artwork looking near-flawless while sitting a notch below the top grade in price.

Design

The finish drapes the Nova in overlapping koi scales, a decorative red-and-white treatment that feels closer to painted art than to tactical camo. Community artist ヒヨコ隊員 designed it, and the fish-scale motif gives this shotgun an ornamental look that stands apart from the usual gray-and-black finishes.

Nova | Koi (Minimal Wear) Float and Wear

With the finish's float capped at 0.30, Minimal Wear falls in the lower-middle of the range. Any surface marks stay faint at this grade and the koi scales keep nearly all their color, so most copies read as good as the top grade at a glance — a strong value pick for the design.

Nova | Koi Rarity

Rarity: Restricted. That's the purple grade, ranked one tier above Mil-Spec and one below Classified. It's an uncommon drop that carries a bit more prestige than the everyday tiers beneath it.

Nova | Koi Case and Collection

Part of The Breakout Collection, this skin comes out of the Operation Breakout Weapon Case that launched alongside Operation Breakout in July 2014. Across the case the Restricted tier pulls at roughly 15.98% (odds shared among the tier's skins), and since the case has left the active drop pool, supply is fixed — the market is where most copies come from now.

Nova | Koi Patterns

There's no random pattern roll on this finish: the koi scales land identically on every copy, so no paint seed or blue-gem variant is worth chasing. What sets two copies apart is purely wear and float, not the pattern index.

StatTrak & Souvenir

There is a StatTrak™ edition, minted from the Operation Breakout Weapon Case, which adds a confirmed-kill counter; it drops more rarely and costs more than the standard skin, and its counter is permanent — it never gets wiped through trades or sales. No Souvenir version was ever made, because Souvenir weapons are produced only from Major-tournament packages and this finish never featured in one.

Nova | Koi Price

Minimal Wear sits just under Factory New (FN) on this finish's ladder while keeping almost the same look, which makes it the value sweet spot of the three grades. It's an affordable mid-tier Nova pick that won't break the bank. Grab it on Skin.Land with instant delivery and no hidden fees.

FAQ

Is the Minimal Wear Koi the best value grade?

For most buyers, yes. It costs noticeably less than Factory New yet the koi scales look nearly identical, since the low float cap keeps wear minimal even here. Field-Tested (FT) is cheaper still if you want the lowest entry price, but Minimal Wear hits the balance of looks and cost.

Does Minimal Wear show any wear on the koi artwork?

Very little. At this grade the scales keep their red-and-white color and only the faintest surface marks appear on close inspection. The koi motif is the focal point, and it stays legible and vivid — you'd need to look hard to spot a difference from the top grade.

Why are there no Well-Worn (WW) or Battle-Scarred (BS) versions?

The finish is float-capped at 0.30, and Well-Worn and Battle-Scarred require higher float values than that. Because the game never rolls a copy past 0.30, those heavier grades simply can't exist — Field-Tested is the most worn version this Nova reaches.