The End of the Capsule Era and Dynamic Pricing
At IEM Cologne 2026, the developers moved away from traditional capsules. Players now buy tokens and redeem them for specific stickers. Each sticker's price is dynamically set by an algorithm based on demand: popular items increase in price, while less requested stickers drop automatically.
Prices across all stickers depend on relative demand: if one sticker sells significantly more often than another, its price climbs while the other's declines.
The Souvenir-O-Matic Tool and New Trade-Ups
- Trade Up Contract
- Exchanging ten items of the same rarity tier (or five Covert skins) for one item of the next higher tier from those items' collections.
- Souvenir
- A weapon tied to a tournament match, featuring gold team and map stickers.
The second major change affects souvenir weapons. The Souvenir-O-Matic tool allows players to turn a standard skin into a souvenir by selecting a specific match and player for gold stickers. More importantly, souvenirs can now be used in Trade Up Contracts alongside regular weapons. When consumed in a trade-up, the skin loses its souvenir status and yields a standard weapon.
Rifle Segment Decline
Souvenirs can now be used in Trade Up Contracts just like regular weapons, increasing the supply of trade-up material on the market. In the week following the update, the rifle segment index lost an average of 5.3%—though data cannot attribute this drop entirely to trade-ups.
| Item | Before | After | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| M4A4 | Hellish(Battle-Scarred) | $26.37 | $20.74 | −21.4% |
| AK-47 | Olive Polycam(Factory New) | $1.05 | $0.91 | −12.7% |
| M4A1-S | Electrum(Field-Tested) | $3.27 | $2.93 | −10.4% |
Average Steam price for the 7 days prior to and 7 days after the event.
The sharpest drops over the week of the update were seen on M4A4 | Hellish (Battle-Scarred), falling 21.4%, and AK-47 | Olive Polycam (Factory New), down 12.7%. Not everything went down: AWP | Asiimov (Battle-Scarred) gained 3.4% over the same period.
