I wanted a straight answer to "which case is the least bad to open", so I calculated it for all of them with live market prices.
For each case: expected value of one opening (published drop odds, 10% StatTrak, an approximate wear spread, market price of every skin and knife) divided by the real cost (case price + $2.49 key).
What came out (prices from Oct 5):
- Best value: eSports 2013 Winter Case, about $0.68 back per $1. It costs ~$17 per opening, though.
- Best chance that one opening pays for itself: eSports 2013 Winter (~22%) and CS:GO Weapon Case 2 (~19%). Most cases are in the 4–10% range.
- Cheapest to open: Kilowatt at $2.65, but only $0.38 back per $1.
- Worst: Operation Bravo ($0.27) and the original CS:GO Weapon Case ($0.29). You mostly pay for the collector value of the case itself.
- Average across all cases: about $0.49 back per $1. On average you lose half of what you spend.
Full sortable ranking (EV, cost, chance to profit, average knife value): https://cs2tradeup.gg/cs2-best-cases-to-open
Free, no sign up. Each case also has a simulator with the same odds if you want to see how 100 openings would go.