I used to be the guy who said "open case X, it has the best top end." I burned through roughly 400 cases across CS:GO and CS2 before I switched mostly to buying direct. People still ask me for the best case to open cs2, and I get it. Nobody wants to waste a case drop, a key, and Steam Market fees on a row of blues they hate. My answer now is less exciting but more honest.

The answer I would give a friend
If a friend asked me today which case to open, I would ask what they want. Profit? No case gives that reliably. A knife? Accept the odds first. A fun opening with skins you might actually use? Now we can make a list. The cases I would actually open right now are a short list, and none of them are automatic money.

The odds are not hidden
CS2 case odds are roughly 79.92% Mil-Spec, 15.98% Restricted, 3.2% Classified, 0.64% Covert, and 0.26% for a rare special item. That puts a knife or gloves at about one in 385 cases. A red is about one in 156. I opened roughly 400 cases and my only knife came around case 360. It was a low-tier flip knife that sold for less than the keys I had bought to chase it. The math is not a conspiracy; it is a lottery with a skin inside.

Skins are Virtual goods, so their value sits on scarcity and demand, not on any in-game stat. That is why an old red can be cheap and a current purple can be overpriced. Knowing the case pool matters more than chasing the newest release.

Best case for cheap volume: Recoil or Fracture
If I wanted to open 10 or 20 cases on a budget, I would pick the Recoil Case or Fracture Case. Recoil often sits around 25 to 35 cents on the Steam Market, and Fracture is usually similar. Remember the key adds about $2.49 on top, so a cheap case is still roughly $2.75 per roll. That is better than paying over a dollar for a case plus the same key. Recoil has the AWP Chromatic Aberration and AK-47 Ice Coaled as top pieces. Fracture has the AK-47 Legion of Anubis, which still looks better than half the newer reds. Cheap cases give you more rolls for the same money, and since rare special item odds do not care about the case price, volume is the only thing you control.

Best case for current knife chase: Kilowatt
For a more expensive opening, Kilowatt is the one I would open if I wanted a shot at the Kukri knife and its newer finishes. It has strong coverts like the AK-47 Inheritance and AWP Chrome Cannon. The case itself is usually above a dollar, so with a key you are looking at roughly $3.60 or more per open. A $20 budget becomes about five cases, not twenty. Those five cases can disappear into five blues in under a minute. The Inheritance and Chrome Cannon are great skins, but the odds of pulling one are tiny.

Best middle ground: Revolution
Revolution sits between the cheap old cases and the pricey new one. It usually costs less than Kilowatt and still has skins I would actually use: AK-47 Head Shot, M4A4 Temukau, and AWP Duality. The case has a mix of clean and loud designs. I would not call it the best value, because no case is good value, but it is the best middle ground if you want relevant skins and a case price under a dollar.

What I actually do now
After a year of opening, I checked my Steam inventory history. I had spent about $320 on cases and keys. My total unboxed inventory was maybe $90 if I timed the sale well. My best pull was an AK-47 Ice Coaled Minimal Wear, and I later bought a cleaner one on the market for less than I spent chasing it. Now I only open a case if it drops and I like the pool. If I want a specific skin, I buy it. For the cost of 20 Kilowatt opens, including keys, I can own a field-tested AK-47 Inheritance outright and skip the 19 blues.

Before you go further into third-party opening, the community discussion at https://www.reddit.com/r/cs2/comments/1qvpblo/what_risks_do_csgo_gambling_sites_pose/ is worth reading. It covers the risks of gambling sites, and it matches the reason I never treat my own case history as a financial argument.

The actual best case
If you force me to give one answer, I would say: the best case to open in CS2 is the cheapest case with skins you actually want. For me right now, that is Recoil. It is cheap, I like Chromatic Aberration and Ice Coaled, and I am not paying for new case hype. If you care more about the current knife pool, open Kilowatt but only with money you are fine losing. The rest is menu selection.