Goat Format World Championship 2023 Deck Tech: Antonio Storniolo's Earth Aggro!

Earth Aggro is one of the most impactful success stories of the 2022 World Championship. Since ShaggyPowers' top 4 placement with the strategy, players the world over have gain a new respect for the strategy. One such player is Antonio "Mr. Demon" Storniolo, who earned his invite with Goblin Attack Force and friends at GCI 9. Earth Aggro is also Storniolo's deck of choice today, though he's opted to include his own spin on the strategy. 

Deck List

Though Earth Aggro has existed in some form or another since the historic era, it was Roghnach that first proved its competitive potential in the 2022 season. This inspired perhaps the most famous Earth Aggro player in the world, Shaggpowers, to run the deck in the 2022 World Championship, where he earned a top 4 placement and solidified the strategy as a meta staple. Earth Aggro is all about aggression. It uses Giant Rat, Goblin Attack Force, and Gigantes to pressure the opponent from the word "go." Cards like Dust Tornado and Stomping Ground remove any hope of slowing the assault. Storniolo's list includes all of these archetype staples, but he's got his own twist on the list, too. The most obvious is Final Attack Orders, which pairs well with Goblin Attack Force, and even acts as a powerful answer to opposing Scapegoats. 

Player Insight

Storniolo had lots of say about the strategy and how well Final Attack Orders fits in. We're all for it, as anything that serves to shake up the metagame means excitement and novelty for this tournament and beyond!  ​

I play the deck because I like the gameplan, it makes pressure since the first turn, and I think it has very few bad matchups. It's an underrated deck, and it's really fun to play (and we can't forget the most important thing: you can finish the matches really quickly without overthinking).Aggression is why I chose the deck. In fact, I play Final Attack Orders, which allows the deck to do the thing it's supposed to do: make pressure and neutralize the defensive strategy of the opponent's deck.​Final Attack Orders is an unusual card, but I think that it helps the deck to express its real potential because the opponent can't hide behind his classic defense strategy (Spy or generic flip monsters, Reapers, Scapegoats, and so on), so he must do something else to protect his LP. It's also synergic with a lot of cards: it allows the Giant Rat to find more attack position monsters and resolve its effect; the same is true for DD Assailant (the opponent must leave chaos monsters in attack position); and obviously, it's synergic with Goblin Attack Force. You could use it even it as a battletrap to turn your monsters into attack position when your opponent declares an attack, or in other spicy ways.We decided to play Compulsory in the side (I say "we" because I built the deck with my teammate Diellor, who told me that compulsory could be a nice tech). I think this card is a valid substitute for Book of Moon; we need it because when Turbo G2 sides in Scapegoat and Meta, you don't want to side Book because book sucks vs. Turbo, so we thought that Compulsory could be a nice card to side against many decks including Turbo in order to get rid of the "control side".

Lucky for us, Storniolo was even kind enough to fill us in on the story of how he earned his invite. As I read through it, I'm reminded of many of my own similar memories of tournament prep. Hopefully he has similar stories to tell after today! 

This deck is basically the deck that brought me to the World Championship in 2023. In the beginning, I was playing Bananakin's version of Earth Aggro because I liked the Final Attack Order idea. Then, in February 2023, I went with my team (Heavy Machinegun) to the GCI Vol. 9 in Milan. Usually, we take a room the night before the tournament to spend some good time all together, and they helped me build the deck. It was 2:30 a.m. the next day we had to play the tournament, and, as always, I was not sure about my side deck, so I started to ask questions to my teammates while they were about to fall asleep. At some point, I decided to rebuild even the main deck because I didn't like the side pattern, so we made a "hybrid" deck, taking inspiration from Bananakin's deck, and Shaggy's deck, too. The next day on GCI Vol. 9 (about 120-130 players), the deck we built some hours earlier brought me into the top 4, giving me the world's invite. And (I must say it) the card that brought me to the World Championship was Final Attack Order, because my opponent had a Spy in defense position and I had only 1700 atk monsters, so basically, when I drew it the next turn, I won the match.​You should play it. #saveearth