CS2 Knife Tier List (2026): All 20 Knives Ranked by What the Market Pays

This CS2 knife tier list ranks all twenty knife shapes by one number: what a worn Safari Mesh copy cost on 9 September 2026, which is the market's price for the silhouette and its animation before any finish is added. S tier is the Butterfly, Karambit and M9 Bayonet; D tier is the five shapes under $41. Every band is dated, and a second, liquidity-based tier list from a third-party tracker sits underneath so you can see where the two disagree.

S tier: Butterfly, Karambit, M9 Bayonet

Three shapes carry a worn floor above $250 and always have. The Butterfly Knife led at $408–428, the Karambit followed at $365–380 and the M9 Bayonet at $259–276 — the same order as before the October 2025 update, at roughly half the prices. All three have full 35-finish ladders, all three have Fade and Doppler markets deep enough to sell into on a bad day, and all three are what people mean when they say "a knife".

The gap between them is the animation. The Butterfly's flip and the Karambit's spin are the two sequences the game is known for; the M9's is a flourish. That is the whole reason the M9 does the same finishes for about half the Karambit price, and it is why the M9 Bayonet file calls it the value pick of the three.

A tier: Talon, Stiletto, Bayonet, Skeleton, Flip

Five shapes between $100 and $190. The Talon Knife at $176–190 is the best shape outside the big three by a wide margin: a Horizon-era karambit-alike with a heavier blade and a spin of its own, priced at nearly half a Karambit floor. The Stiletto at $112–121 is its case-mate — a slim switchblade with a quick flick that the market rates a full rung lower.

The Bayonet ($107–117) and Flip ($102–108) are the two mid-priced originals, within $10 of each other and argued over in their own files. The Skeleton Knife at $106–114 is the surprise — the only Shattered Web shape with a three-figure floor, carried entirely by its finger-ring spin. Its Fade was not read on the check-date, but a shape floor this high on a 2019 knife with only 25 finishes says the animation is doing the work.

B tier: Nomad, Classic, Falchion, Huntsman, Ursus, Bowie

Six shapes at $42–68 that are better knives than the tier implies. The Nomad ($61–66) is the cleanest of the Shattered Web four and the best-looking of them in a plain finish. The Classic Knife ($56–68) is the CS 1.6 homage with 13 finishes and no float-capped premium finish — its top end is Case Hardened and Crimson Web, which suits it.

The Falchion ($49–56) and Huntsman ($46–58) are the pair worth the most thought at this price: same four shared cases, same floor, opposite virtues. The Falchion file is the animation argument and the Huntsman file is the blade-surface argument. The Ursus ($45–50) and Bowie ($42–50) are big, slow knives the market has never rated, which makes them the cheapest large blades in the game.

C and D tier: the floor

The Gut Knife sits alone in C at $40–43 because it is the only floor shape with the Arms Deal finish ladder behind it — a Gut Doppler was $110–130 on the check-date, the cheapest Doppler of any knife, which the Gut Knife file makes the whole case for. Below it, five shapes at $34–41: Paracord, Survival, Kukri, Shadow Daggers, Navaja.

D tier is not a quality judgement. The Kukri is eighteen months old, drops from two active cases and their trade-ups, and reached the floor on supply alone. The Shadow Daggers turn over more copies per day than any other knife on third-party trackers. The Navaja is bottom because its inspect is the least-liked in the game, and for no other reason. Any of the five is a real ★ item at the price of a full-price game. The cheapest CS2 knives page prices all of them per wear.

How to use the tiers when buying

Use the tier as a floor guide, not a verdict, and pick within the tier on animation. S tier costs $259–428 before a finish, so the only question there is which of three animations you want to watch for a thousand hours; the finish ladder is nearly identical across the three. A tier is where the value is if you want a shape with presence for $100–190, and the Talon in particular does most of what a Karambit does at half the floor.

B tier is the canvas tier: the Huntsman and Nomad make a premium finish look expensive on a $46–66 shape, and the Falchion adds a real inspect for the same money. C and D are where the finish is the entire purchase — the Gut Doppler at $110–130 is the proof, and the Gut Knife file is the argument. Whatever tier you buy in, a worn common finish is the cheap way to own the shape, and Factory New is only worth paying for on the float-capped finishes, where nothing else exists.

The other tier list: liquidity, not prestige

A third-party tracker publishes a knife tier list weighted 40% market liquidity, 40% daily sales and 20% thirty-day price stability, and its order barely overlaps with ours. Its S tier is Butterfly, Bayonet and Falchion; its A tier Flip, Bowie, M9, Shadow Daggers and Huntsman; the Karambit sits in B with the Gut, Stiletto, Talon, Navaja and Kukri; and its C tier is Ursus, Skeleton, Nomad, Paracord, Survival and Classic. It quotes daily sales counts of 23,400 for the Shadow Daggers, 19,700 for the Falchion and 17,900 for the Bayonet against 16,000 for the Butterfly and 14,400 for the M9.

Both lists are right about different questions. Ours answers "what does the market think this shape is worth"; theirs answers "how easily can I sell one". Cheap shapes turn over more, so they rank higher on sales; the Karambit's five-figure phases are stable and slow, so it ranks lower on liquidity than its price suggests. If you plan to hold a knife, read ours; if you plan to flip one, read theirs, and read the full index of all CS2 knives for the bands behind every tier.