Guide on DreamHack 2013 Souvenir Skins
Topic: A Collector's Guide on DreamHack 2013 Souvenirs
Welcome to (one of) the biggest DreamHack 2013 guide there is! We're going to dive deep into CS:GO's first major, and give you a complete overview of it's unique souvenirs, from a collector's perspective. In addition, a plethora of previously private/hidden information concerning topics like the Valve pre-event tests, the glitched "no text" M249 Gator Mesh and more, is detailed in this piece.
No souvenir collector worth their salt ignores the historical context of their souvenirs. To that end, this guide also serves as a timeline of the Dreamhack 2013 Major, to better understanding what makes these items truly special & unique. Make yourself comfortable and dive deep into our guide! However much you know about this major, you'll surely learn a lot here!
Arms Deal Update
On August 8, 2013, CS:GO underwent a significant transformation with the "Arms Deal" update, marking the introduction of weapon skins into the game. This update also welcomed the M4A1-S and USP-S, alongside the release of the first weapon and esports cases - the latter contributing to CS:GO tournament prize pools.
This innovative approach to funding was pivotal for the game's first major tournament, which, although not yet public, was already in the works by Valve. By selling keys for these cases, Valve amassed a substantial prize pool of $250,000. This financial strategy was revealed when Valve announced its partnership with DreamHack for the SteelSeries CS:GO Championship on September 16, 2013.
At this juncture, customization options were limited to the skins themselves, with the most sought-after being the vivid ones, standing out against the more common military and camo designs. Valve's initial focus on realistic skins facilitated the birth of CS:GO's economy, leveraging procedural systems for creating diverse collections from single textures, setting the stage for the future richness of in-game customization.
DreamHack 2013: Qualified Teams
The following teams qualified for the major:
- NiP
- N!faculty
- SK Gaming
- Copenhagen Wolves
- Universal soldiers
- Natus Vincere
- Astana Dragons
- comLexity Gaming
- VeryGames
- Clan-Mystik
- Fnatic
- iBUYPOWER
- LGB eSports
- Recursive (formerly We got Game)
- Xapso
- Reason Gaming
Interestingly, the qualification format included both previous tournament winners (such as NiP for winning Dreamhack Summer 2013, and SK for winning DH Bucharest), as well as Teams who were straight-up invited (like iBUYPOWER and VeryGames).
In addition, Online qualifiers were held, which allowed LGB and Recursive to qualify over Reason and EnRo GRIFFINS. Reason would still go on to qualify by participating in the following BYOC qualifier, as well as Xapso, beating both mousesports and Nostalgie.
Sadly, the Australian VOX Eminor would not qualify despite having a good run-up until the quarterfinal, where they would lose against Xapso.
DreamHack 2013 Stickers & Drop Format
Dreamhack 2013 souvenirs only feature a total of twelve different stickers obtainable on skins from the given map collections, with 6 being paper and the others labeled as ‘foil’. These stickers are exclusively tournament stickers, featuring a variety of designs emphasizing the winter theme. All of them except the snowflake also feature the Title sponsor, SteelSeries, on the logos.
Whenever a player opens a DH13 souvenir package, the following happens:
- The game randomly selects a map collection (all included in the same package)
- The game randomly selects a weapon from the map collection
- The game randomly selects a sticker from one of the twelve possible options
- The game randomly applies said sticker on one of the 4 or 5 default sticker slots of the weapon
- When applied, the stickers are also rotated and resized randomly
- Finally, a random wear percentage is also applied on the sticker, similar to a skin's float value
It is also important to note that percentages do of course vary depending on the skin and sticker quality. Aside from the snowflake, which has the same percentage as the papers, there is about a 13% chance of obtaining a foil sticker from a Dreamhack package, which only adds to their desirability.
This excessive randomness is exclusive to the Dreamhack 2013 souvenirs, and souvenirs going forward would ditch the random rotation and wear pattern, perhaps due to players finding it unpopular at the time.
That being said, it makes perfect sense for Valve to include so many random factors in the early souvenirs, as that would allow the creation of a souvenir economy by shipping a variety of skins quickly. The most desirable souvenirs were therefore:
- Higher quality (and more colorful) skins (classified, restricted, etc…)
- Sticker placement
- A foil tournament sticker (with the frosty being the most expensive)
- A sticker with good rotation, size, and the least amount of wear.
Finally, it is interesting to note this tournament is one of two to feature skins from the safehouse, lake, and Italy collections, the other one being Katowice 2014. In addition, the bugged R8 Bone Mask from the bank collection is also available, but we’ll go over that in a later section.
Valve pre-event tests
A week before the start of the tournament, Valve would hold a test run of the various tournament features, such as GOTV broadcast and the souvenir drop system. This match would be called “The Valve Pre-Event Test”, and would be first held on de_militia, where Valve employees and ESL staff would play against each other.
Souvenirs that dropped from these tests can be identified by the match information "dropped during the Valve Pre-Event Test match between Valve Squad Alpha and Valve Squad Bravo."
To my knowledge, there is no complete VOD available online for the first pre-event test. However, during my research for this piece, I discovered old screenshots of the match in question, as well as a small highlight clip , which gives us a good idea of the actual viewership. According to some, the match would eventually be canceled due to various technical difficulties, which means there would only be a few viewers present who could actually get drops.
That theory is disputed by this Reddit thread dating back to when the match was played, and the scoreline is reportedly 16-11 in favor of Valve Squad Alpha.
The farthest screenshot I could find of this legendary match shows a scoreline of 8 to 4 in favor of Valve Squad Bravo, with a total of 16 items dropped, and a viewership of around 6200. If we assume the game went to round 20 and ended prematurely, there would be around 27 drops by that time. If the 16-11 scoreline mentioned on Reddit stands true, then we’re looking at a figure closer to 36 drops.
DH13 Valve test match souvenir drops guide by Lurker: Steam Guide
Lurker wrote very helpful guides listing all currently known pre-event skins for both Dreamhack 2013 and Katowice 2014. In his DH13 guide, he lists a total of 25 currently known Valve Squad Alpha vs Bravo souvenirs, which aligns pretty well with our estimate from the screenshots. For reference, it was previously thought to be around 60 drops, which is likely twice as much as what actually dropped.
Pricing (as of 27.02.2024)
It goes without saying, but these days, Valve pre-event drops are some of the most expensive souvenirs there are, mostly due to their incredible scarcity. In addition, they are particularly hard to acquire, as there is no real way to search for them using the tools currently available to us, such as common databases like CSFloat and CSGO.Exchange which do not have a “search by description” feature. The only marketplace where that’s possible is the SCM, but they are rarely listed there.
For reference, The recent auction of known pre-event collector omar_anwari’s inventory was probably one of the largest recorded sales of such items. Community members helped PC the items on sale. As such, we can see consumer-grade items going for about 250 USD, or 1900 RMB as of the writing of this. More expensive souvenirs, notably the ones featured on usable guns like the M4, approach the thousand-dollar mark.
That being said, despite their incredible rarity, these items are also among the hardest to sell. Dreamhack 2013s, in general, are less desirable to most collectors, in part due to the lack of team stickers, but also due to the stickers present being usually small and lacking any shiny or distinctive effect. With that in mind, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that finding a buyer for a basic consumer-grade skin with a tiny pre-scratched sticker at such a price is a tall order.
Interestingly, the highest grade valve squad pre-event is this MP9 Hot Rod, owned by a collector named “Jesbus”. This particular one fetched close to 4.5k RMB at the time of purchase, and the owner has received offers upwards of 22k RMB for it. It’s also worth noting, that despite it being the rarest pre-event, its value doesn't necessarily reflect it, as the m4 shown here has fetched higher despite being lower-grade.
NiP pre-event tests
Following the premature end of the first pre-event test, a second test was conducted on the 22nd of November 2013, a week before the start of the tournament’s group stage on the 28th.
However, instead of internal employees, this pre-event match was played on de_aztec, pitting NiP’s 2007 CS 1.6 squad against their 2013 CS:GO squad (it’s important to note the members were shuffled).
The teams were labelled “NiP Team A” and “NiP Team B”, and were composed of the following members:
NiP Team A
- SpawN
- walle
- Xizt
- Fifflaren
- GeT_RiGhT
NiP Team B
- Friberg
- zet
- HeatoN
- f0rest
- Potti
As the second test involved NiP, the most popular Counter-Strike team at the time, the viewership was a lot higher, meaning there are likely at least 3x the number of drops when compared to the first pre-event test (somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 drops).
Unlike the first pre-event test, more footage of said match is currently available online, although I’ve only found the highlights of the match. There are no reports of the match being canceled prematurely, so we’re pretty confident in saying it went the full distance.
In addition, the match was split into two legs, with one half being played on 1.6 (obviously with no drops), and the other being played on Global Offensive. I guess they did it for the sake of fairness(?)
That aside, Lurker’s guide on all currently known NiP Team A vs Team B souvenirs lists a total of 119 known souvenirs, which aligns with our estimate from earlier. The collections dropped seem to be identical to the ones tested in the first pre-event test: Steam Guide
Pricing of the NiP pre-event test
These particular pre-event souvenirs are also quite expensive when compared to their regular group-stage / playoff counterparts, despite their quantity being estimated at around 2 -3x that of Valve pre-events. In general, most NiP pre-events seem to go for similar prices to Valve pre-events.
Interestingly, the highest-grade pre-event skin currently known seems to be these NiP Team A vs B restricted Cobalt Quartz Dualies with a snowflake foil sticker. In today’s market, they could easily fetch upwards of 3.5 - 4k RMB.
Exhibition Match: Duncan vs Tomi
With the pre-event test matches done, it was about time for the Dreamhack Winter 2013 major to start. But, before the start of the group stage, an exhibition match with souvenir drops was played as an opening for the whole tournament.
Analysts Thorin (Duncan Shields) and Lurppis (Tomi Kovanen) picked 5-players for a show match to start the event, with the teams finally composed of:
Team Duncan
Dosia
kennyS
TaZ
starix
Delpan
Team Tomi
markeloff
Skadoodle
anger
pasha
KQLY
As such, drops from this match feature the text “dropped during the exhibition match between Team Duncan and Team Tomi”. This match, with the full VOD available on YouTube, had the same viewership as a normal group stage match, as well as duration. Two full maps were played, with Team Tomi taking a decisive 2-0 victory over Duncan. Therefore, the drops may only fetch a slight overpay over a standard group stage souvenir and usually go for market anyways.
Teamless, 0 text souvenirs DreamHack 2013
Still to this day, the origins of these souvenirs remain a mystery. Some speculate they were test drops to valve employees, which would explain the missing team information. Another theory would be that they are bugged drops which regularly dropped throughout the tournament, much like MVPLess souvenirs from later tournaments.
Teamless souvenirs are ones where the yellow description is missing any mention of the match and teams playing. It appears almost every Dreamhack 2013 souvenir skin has a teamless counterpart floating around somewhere.
Similarly, there exists one souvenir devoid of any yellow description, a battle-scarred M249 Gator Mesh. This is almost certainly a glitch, as this item is one of a kind as far as we know. Previously owned by souvenir and float collector McLaren’t, this M249 was last sold in 2021.
The first owner, Chocolate Coconut Cake, sold it alongside an array of teamless and pre-event souvenirs to McLaren’t for a total of 7000$, or approximately 50k RMB. It is hard to extract its valuation from that trade alone, as the price of these items was much lower back then, to begin with, but we can infer that it probably sold for less than a thousand dollars at that time.
In any case, teamless souvenirs appear to be rarer than exhibition/group stage drops, but still fairly common when compared to pre-events, which in my view eliminates the possibility of them being from an unknown test match.
According to Dutch’s famous guide, these have started to flood the market around 2015, and with the help of some boolean logic, it is possible to find these on the Steam community market with a simple search string: commemorates NOT dropped.
Bank Collection R8 Revolver
As the story goes, when Valve introduced the R8 revolver to CS:GO in late 2015, they added R8 skins to pre-existing collections, two of which also dropped in souvenir packages from previous tournaments.
As such, a few Souvenir R8 revolvers Bone Mask were opened in said souvenir packages, despite them not being officially listed as souvenir skins. Therefore, we can deduce this was most likely unintentional on Valve’s part, and some sort of bug/glitch. As the chance of unboxing one is so rare, and as the packages got more expensive by then, Valve probably didn’t bother fixing it due to the small amount of players it actually affects.
CS:GO Unique Skins & Items: Steam Guide
According to this steam guide, Only 8 revolver bone masks have been unboxed so far (in part due to the price of old Dreamhack 2013 and Katowice 2014 packages, the only two majors to feature skins from the bank collection). Of which, two were teamless, and a single one from Katowice 2014 has been unboxed by youtuber TDM_HeyZeus. They’re currently selling for several thousands depending on sticker & placement.
What’s more, it should also theoretically be possible to unbox a souvenir R8 amber fade from an older tournament package such as a dreamhack 2013 or Katowice 2014, however this has yet to happen, most likely due to the amber fade being a restricted skin, which is much harder to obtain than a consumer-grade like the bone mask, without even factoring in the cost of doing so.
As of now, most souvenir R8 Amber Fades with souvenir stickers older than its release date were dropped from 2015 packages, which make sense considering they were inexpensive at the time. The only one dropped from 2014 is from a cologne fnatic vs Dignitas package, currently owned by Arrow.
It seems that Valve has learned from this lesson, and so far the only weapon introduced after the R8 (the mp5) hasn’t been retroactively added to any collection or souvenir package.
Pricing & Desirability
Market trends have shown Frosty the Hitman to be the most desirable sticker among both the papers and foils, most likely due to its striking design. On the other hand, the least desirable would have to be the shooter and snowflake papers.
In addition, as is the case for most skins, higher grade, and therefore more colorful skins fetch higher prices than more military-looking ones. The only exception to this rule are Souvenir AWP/AK safari meshes, and urban DDPAT M4s to some extent. These skins usually command higher prices than a higher-grade souvenir from the same tournament, due to them being on main weapons & the finish having a high contrast with stickers.
For anyone new to souvenirs, tournament stages also play a role in determining a souvenir’s value. This is particularly evident for Dreamhack 2013 souvenirs, due to the lack of team stickers, which only leaves the tournament stage, sticker, and skin as the factors for value. Usually, the closer to the Grand Finals the souvenir is, the less valuable it becomes (excluding team stickers and other factors). For Dreamhack 2013, the order of value & rarity is quite clear.
Starting with the rarest and most desirable, we have:
- Valve Pre-events
- NiP Team A vs B Pre-events
- Teamless souvenirs
- iBUYPOWER group stage souvenirs
- Exhibition match (tomi vs duncan)
- Group Stage
- Quarter, semi and Grand Finals
Finally, as with most souvenirs, certain teams command higher prices than others. This is especially the case for iBUYPOWER souvenirs, which despite lacking the team sticker, still fetch higher than their group stage counterparts.
Rarest 1/1 souvenirs from DreamHack 2013
In the realm of 2013 souvenirs, a select few items stand out due to their remarkable rarity, with their scarcity noted partly from insights on Phazz’s Unique Skins list. Among these are:
- The previously mentioned Blank Souvenir, M249 Gator Mesh.
- The Souvenir M4A1-S Nitro FN, of which only a single DH13 exists.
- The Souvenir Dual Berettas | Cobalt Quartz WW, another skin with only one known in existence.
- The Souvenir AWP | Pit Viper WW, with a lone DH13 variant.
- The Souvenir MP9 | Orange Peel FN, of which again, only one is known to exist.
Moreover, many of the Valve & NiP pre-event souvenirs could technically be classified as 1/1, but as they are tied to the stage rather than the tournament, they won't be included in this particular rundown. For a broader exploration of all known pre-event souvenirs, Lurker's guide is available for further examination.
Notable & unique appearance teams
During the tournament, an intriguing development unfolded with the French org Recursive, who notably acquired the "WE GOT GAME" lineup in the midst of competition on November 24th.
In addition, it seems Valve didn't update the souvenir text on the dropped items, likely due to the ongoing nature of the tournament. As a result, the souvenirs from Recursive continued to bear the "WE GOT GAME" team name, persisting even through to the quarter-finals.
This event wasn't the only unique narrative of the tournament. Teams like Astana Dragons, n!faculty, VeryGames, Universal Soldiers, Xapso, and the previously mentioned Recursive, made their sole appearance in this tournament. Post-event, many of these lineups underwent transitions—either being acquired by other eSports brands, like Universal Soldiers morphing into Virtus.Pro, or disbanding to form new teams, as was the case with Astana.
Major Stories
Clan-Mystik's Group Stage Elimination after ESWC Trophy
Clan-Mystik, the ESWC Champions of 2013, experienced an early elimination during the group stages of the Dreamhack winter tournament. This was a notable point as they had recently won the ESWC 2013 Grand Finals against VeryGames, showcasing their potential as a possible major winner.
However, during the group stage, Clan-Mystik managed to secure one win and two losses, placing third in their group and thus failing to advance to the playoff stage.
VeryGames Semifinal Run (ScreaM's Best Result)
VeryGames had a significant run in the Dreamhack 2013 Major, making it to the semifinals. One of their key players, ScreaM, was particularly instrumental in their performance throughout the year, including in this tournament.
Sadly, this would go on to ultimately be ScreaM’s best performance in a CS:GO major.
Recursive's Acquisition of We Got Game and Quarter-final Run
3 days after qualifying in the BYOC last-chance qualifier, as previously mentioned, The We Got Game lineup would be bought by Recursive, and thus compete under that name. The Maniac-lead team would feature France’s upcoming CS:GO prodigy, kennyS, among other notable names.
Recursive made it all the way to the quarter-finals, where they lost against the eventual finalists, Fnatic.
Conclusion
We hope you enjoyed today's guide about DreamHack 2013 Souvenirs. If you're interested in seeing more guides like this on EsportFire feel free to let us know via Twitter! Have an amazing rest of your day and make sure to check out our other CS2-related articles right below this paragraph.
Last but not least: A big shout-out to the people that contributed in making this guide possible: @MVPHAS, @defnite, Coconut_Cake, Jesbus & Minion!
