AWP. So powerful, accurate, and expensive. This sniper rifle is an ace up any team’s sleeve. In Counter-Strike 2, this gun has retained all its advantages and still is considered the most formidable weapon in matches. CS.MONEY Blog tells you everything you need to know about AWP: strong and weak sides, best skins, how to play, and much more.
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AWP’s Strong Sides: Damage and Accuracy
AWP’s main strength is the ability to kill an enemy with one single bullet except for leg shots. This makes it a formidable weapon in the hands of an experienced marksman. Basically, you should never try to fight with this sniper rifle at any distance. In addition to this, AWP has high accuracy: a shot to the center of the body hits at a distance of 100 meters and above. Fortunately, in CS2 there are no hundred-meter straight lines on competitive maps.
Finally, AWP’s indirect advantage is the psychological, mental pressure. Due to its high firepower, your opponents will be scared of you and your actions, playing carefully and sneaky. The mere presence of an AWP can make enemies to change their strategy and movement on the map, forcing them to spend additional utility.
AWP’s Weak Sides: Price, Slowness
Even though AWP has the highest damage among all weapons in CS2, this same rifle has the third lowest damage per second! And the thing is, there’s a pause of 1.5 seconds between each shot, making snipers extremely vulnerable after missed shots.
Another weakness is its high price: AWP is the most expensive weapon in the meta and one of the most expensive in the game. It is not always possible to afford to have it in the third round, and losing one greatly impacts the team’s economics. Finally, AWP has a small magazine of five bullets and a long reload time of 3.7 seconds, one of the longest cooldowns in the game. Add a very small magazine, and you won’t have any room for mistakes when playing with an AWP.
Best strat to play with AWP is to hold your distance and move regularly. The higher the distance to your target, the easier it is for you to make a kill and avoid death.
AWP in CS2 Meta: How To Play?
AWP is one of the top three weapons of CS2 meta, along with AK47 and M4. Moreover, each professional team should have a sniper. A skilled AWP player can open rounds or hold positions almost single-handedly, but even a good sniper is forced to rely not only on own skill, but also on teammates. One smoke, two flashes—and you’re dead if chosen a wrong position (best case scenario: you run to save). Despite this, AWP is still the most important element of winning a round, both at the professional level and in regular matchmaking.
Most Expensive AWP Skin
AWP boasts a huge variety of luxurious, expensive and wanted skins worth thousands of dollars. Desert Hydra, Gungnir, Fade, Medusa… These and other rifle skins are truly amazing and hard to afford. But also, there is an undisputed leader among most expensive AWP skins: AWP Dragon Lore. It costs a lot as some options easily exceed $50,000, and it’s a time-tested icon that looks just decent. Even a simeple AWP Dragon Lore Factory New will cost ten thousand dollars. Interestingly, AWP Gungnir and a couple of other AWP skins will cost approximately the same but Dragon Lore still rightfully bears the title of the most expensive AWP.
Five Amazing AWP Skins
Yet, it’s not necessary to spend thousands of dollars to have nicely-lloking skins for AWP. CS2 can offer a huge variety of cool AWP skins for any budget. We selected five beautiful options ranging from $1 to $100.
- AWP Atheris Minimal Wear for $6
- AWP Chromatic Aberration Field-Tested for $10
- AWP Neo-Noir Minimal Wear for $28
- AWP Hyper Beast Minimal Wear for $50
- AWP Asiimov Well-Worn for $100
Note that with the new sticker-applying system, decorating AWP with stickers has become much easier. The community especially like to place them on the sight. Some dudes even apply three or four stickers on it! It looks very unusual but cool.
People respect and fear AWP in CS2. The ability to turn the tide of a game with one shot makes it a vital part of the competitive meta. With a wide range of awesome skins to choose from, snipers can not only dominate the match, but do it in style. You can get skins quickly and inexpensively at CS.MONEY. Join now and get your skins cheaper!
