Nova | Mandrel

Nova | Mandrel released September 1, 2018 as part of the 2018 Nuke Collection.

It originally released during the CS:GO era, before Valve's Counter-Strike 2 relaunch in September 2023 — its artwork, wear range, and source carried over unchanged into CS2.

It launched as a Consumer Grade finish, with a Souvenir edition but no StatTrak™ version.

As a finish, "Mandrel" is applied to the Nova — a pump-action shotgun available to both sides, a step up from the pistols at close range — and carries the grey rarity color every Consumer Grade skin shares on the Steam Market and in-game.

That Consumer Grade classification places it among the most common tiers in CS2 — a rank that only appears in Collections, never in a Case's own drop pool.

Nova | Mandrel ships in all five wear conditions, but its float is capped between 0.00 and 0.50 — narrower than the full 0.00–1.00 range some other skins allow.

As with every CS2 skin, lower float values look cleaner: Factory New copies (roughly below 0.07 float) show the finish at its sharpest, while Field-Tested and Well-Worn pieces make up the most commonly traded middle ground between mint and heavily worn.

Nova | Mandrel is part of the 2018 Nuke Collection rather than being unboxed from a traditional weapon Case — the Collection is not tied to any live drop mechanic, so trade-ups and the Steam Community Market are the main ways to acquire one.

Valve has never published exact Collection odds. The estimate above (1 in 6, 16.0051%) applies the same rarity-tier cascade confirmed for Cases, giving a general sense of scale rather than a guaranteed rate.

Alongside the Normal version, this finish also has a Souvenir edition — there's no StatTrak™ counterpart.

Beyond that, there's no separate "phase" or pattern family tied to this finish in the site's data — it's tracked as a single fixed look across every wear condition it ships in.

As a Consumer Grade finish, Nova | Mandrel sits among the more common pulls from the 2018 Nuke Collection rather than being a chase item — a straightforward, affordable way to add a Nova skin to a loadout or collection.

Its Souvenir edition tends to trade at a premium over the Normal version, the same pattern seen across most CS2 skins with that variant available.

Nova | Mandrel has been part of the 2018 Nuke Collection since September 1, 2018, and like every CS:GO-era CS2 skin, carried over unchanged when Valve relaunched the game on the Source 2 engine in 2023 — the artwork, wear range, and source Case/Collection are the same today as they were before the migration.

It's one of 5 Consumer Grade items in the 2018 Nuke Collection, out of 18 items total.

This is one of 47 Nova skins currently listed on the site, spanning multiple rarity tiers.