With the Edge of Eternities set right around the corner, it's time to look to the stars and start imagining what our commander games will be like with the introduction of aliens, starships and space stations. We're going high-tech in today's column, in more ways than you can imagine. Not only do I have a decklist for you, I have an experiment in Artificial Intelligence!

The experiment is that I decided to find out what would happen if I asked chatGPT (a generative AI chatbot) to do my work for me. My high-tech laptop is making sounds like that of an airplane taking off, so a dodgy fan has me concerned that I might be without a laptop for a short time. Unlike apparently half of the grade school students in America, I do not plan to pass off this chatGPT experiment as my own work, but I do think it's a worthy experiment.

I'll share my own decklist and thoughts further down, but before we put the prompt into chatGPT, let's take a look at the subject of today's column. It's not a creature - it's a legendary vehicle. With Edge of Eternities we're going to be allowed to use legendary vehicles and spacecraft as our commanders!

The irony of today's column is that I'll be writing about a Final Fantasy card, but for me it has a decidedly sci-fi twist. When I set eyes on today's card I realized I needed to paint a Star Wars themed alter on one.

The Final Fantasy art (an old school airship) is more steampunk than sci-fi, but my alter solves that problem for me. I don't recally any references to "AI" in Star Wars, but somehow this odd mash-up made sense to me. I also love sharing my alters with you, even if I'm still just a hack with a paintbrush and a lot still to learn about painting.

Embracing Our AI Overlords

Rather than launch into my usual overview of the card in question, let's start with that AI experiment.

The way chatGPT works is you type in a "prompt" and it returns a result. For my experiment I put in one prompt that wasn't specific enough. The resulting column and decklist for this mono-Black commander included off-color cards like Cyclonic Rift and Fauna Shaman. It also included the curiously named "Strix of the Fashionable Archive (prophet of fashion)", a card that it apparently just made up wholecloth.

Clearly AI needed more help, so I put together the following slightly more specific prompt.

After a brief pause, chatGPT gave me the following...

Snap Back to Reality

It's possible starting my prompt with "Help me write" resulted in some of the weirdness that followed. Maybe if I started with "Show me" the output would have felt more like a real column.

There are a few nuggets in there that I like, but I don't think I'm at risk of being replaced by chatGPT any time soon. I fully expect that if I took enough bites at the chatGPT apple, I'd come away with something much more convincing. This technology is clearly reliant on a lot of help to get it to the point where it can do something like this, and I actually enjoy writing my own columns and making my own decklists.

The AI generated column has a deck with 120 cards and two copies of Animate Dead, so it's not actually a format-legal Commander deck. Maybe I should have specified that. It's a bracket 3 list with three game changers: Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, and Necropotence.

Necropotence is a card I don't think I've ever put into a deck. Dictate of Erebos, Grave Pact, and Sheoldred, Whispering One are also in the list, and I generally lean away from those types of oppressive cards, suggesting that you can add them in if you want to power up the deck and make it a little meaner. If nothing else, the fact that the deck's 38 lands don't include a basic land count of 26, 33 or 37 are obvious signs (to me) that it's not a list I put together.

I will give chatGPT credit for picking up on my love for Nim Deathmantle combo. I've written up a few mono-Black decks over the years, including a recent column about Zodiark, Umbral God, so I expect it might have cribbed a few cards from those lists.

This chatGPT deck does have a lot of interesting choices and you could probably cut 10 cards, including one of the two copies of Animate Dead, and have a list you could play in a casual game of EDH.

The AI-generated exposition in the column is clearly lacking. I'm glad I didn't specify a word count, as my intention was to include this chatGPT experiment in this week's column and it's already going to be long enough. I may go back later and run a test with a specific word count just to see what comes out, but there's zero chance this becomes more than just a one-off experiment.

Keeping it Real

What chatGPT doesn't understand is that we humans like to make all sorts of creative leaps when we create content. My own decklist isn't wildly far off from the list above, and includes plenty of format staples that everyone runs in their mono-Black EDH decks.

I'm making a Falcon list around my alter of The Falcon as The Millennium Falcon from Star Wars. That got me thinking about whether I could theme the deck in any way to fit into that theme. My commander has me in colors that would make it a challenge to recreate the cast of the original 1977 film. I can see Han Solo as Pitiless Plunderer, and Chewbacca as Ravenous Chupacapbra might be funny, but beyond that it would be a challenge.

My build path found its direction when I realized I could easily think of nearly any artifact creature as a robot. There are lots of robots in Star Wars, and while few of them have the Robot creature type, it's not a crazy leap to imagine The Falcon engaged in a few robot salvage missions. I'm sure they would pick up a few unsavory characters, which are easily represented by the Demons, Zombies, and other odd creatures that fill out the list.

Nim Deathmantle Combo

This deck has creatures that can present a threat to win by combat damage while also serving as Nim Deathmantle combo fodder.

The key to this game plan is Nim Deathmantle, a equipment that can bring a nontoken creature back into play for 4 mana when it dies. Ashnod's Altar lets me sacrifice a creature to generate 2 mana, covering half of the mana needed to perform the loop. The Falcon, Airship Restored provides recursion for creatures, so I want creatures like Workshop Assistant and Myr Retriever in the list to help me recur noncreature artifacts. If either of the first two cards shown above are destroyed, these creatures give me a way to get the back outside of drawing into my Buried Ruin.

Winning through combat is most casual EDH decks' initial game plan. They might draw into something stronger, but they always want to have something on the battlefield. Myr Battlesphere lets me create four 1/1 Myr creature tokens and when it attacks I can tap X Myr to give it +X/+0 and deal X damage to the player or planeswalker it's attacking.

Triplicate Titan and Phyrexian Triniform both cost a hefty 9 mana, making them much more tempting recursion targets for The Falcon. They are 9/9 creatures that will leave behind 3/3 token creatures when they die, making them great for having a presence on the battlefield.

All of these are joined by Su-Chi Cave Guard and Marionette Master as creatures that can loop with Nim Deathmantle and the right sacrifice outlet. With Ashnod's Altar, I can sacrifice two creatures to create 4 mana to play for my Nim Deathmantle activation, letting me generate an arbitrarily large army and as much mana as I want. Su-Chi Cave Guard will let me generate a boatload of colorless mana that I'll be able to use until end of turn. Marionette Master just wins the game by pushing out damage whenever an artifact I control is put into a graveyard.

This is a combo I've always been very fond of. You could lean into it even more by adding additional payoffs like Blood Artist and Zulaport Cutthroat. If I threw in more creatures I might get to the point where a card like Tombstone Stairwell would make sense, but I didn't do that in this first draft.

Odds and Ends

I've loaded up this deck with robots (artifact creatures), a combo wincon, and a handful of mono-Black format staples like Deadly Rollick and Withering Torment. Beyond that I've got a few cards worth putting a spotlight on.

Any Black deck with a ton of artifacts should be running Cranial Plating. It's best in an Academy Manufactor list that pushes out dozens upon dozens of artifact tokens, but it should be good in this deck. Cranial Plating gives +1/+0 for each artifact I control and equips for 1 mana, but for two Black mana it can be attached to target creature I control at instant speed. That means I can swing four creatures at someone with three blockers and once blocks are declared, I can put it onto the unblocked attacker.

Scion of Draco is the kind of creature I'll never want to pay for, but The Falcon gives me a way to recur it from the graveyard for a fraction of its casting cost. It's just a 4/4 flying artifact creature with the Dragon subtype, but it also gives my Black creatures lifelink. Scion pairs really, really well with Pestilence Demon, an 8 mana Demon that can ping each creature and each player for 1 mana. It'll hit me too, but if it has lifelink I'll be happy to push out as much as five damage so it survives while it gains me a whole bunch of life. A pair of creatures with a combined mana value of 20 is only playable in casual EDH, and really only tempting because this deck's commander has the ability to bring a creature back from the graveyard.

Artifacts, Legendaries, and Sagas are historic, so there's a reasonable chance I might be able to exile historic cards from my graveyard with a total mana value of 30 or more. The Capitoline Triad lets me do that and will reward me with an emblem that makes my creatures have base power and toughness of 9/9. This deck doesn't go wide unless it hits a combo, but it doesn't take that many 9 power creatures to finish off a table if things are going well.

If things aren't going well, Platinum Emperion will be happy to lend a hand. This eight mana 8/8 Golem simply states that my life total can't change. I can still lose the game in any manner of ways, but not by having my life total hit zero. The Falcon will be happy to bring this lifesaver back into play if it eats a Krosan Grip. I've also got other ways to recur both artifacts and creatures, but if I'm clinging to a Platinum Emperion to stay in the game that means things are definitely not looking up.

My last spotlight has to go on Reckoner Bankbuster. This two mana vehicle isn't legendary, so it'll never be the commander of a deck, but it can draw me cards and eventually create a Pilot creature token that in turn can help pilot The Falcon. While famous spaceships like Serenity and the Enterprise have shuttles, I don't recall The Millenium Falcon having a shuttle. We're about as far from a strict retelling of any of the Star Wars stories as can be, so I decided to not worry about such things and throw Reckoner Bankbuster into the mix anyways. I'll be glad to have that card draw, and the Treasure and Pilot tokens may come in handy as well.

Falcon Restored

I like my theme of going on salvage missions to collect lost and abandoned robots across the galaxy, and I'm comfortable leaning on a tried and true Nim Deathmantle wincon if combat isn't looking like it's going to be an option. Sometimes other decks just build up faster and you've got no good attacks until you are able to wipe the board and try again. The fact that The Falcon flies has me optimistic that I'll be able to deal combat damage, but I am slightly less optimistic that I'll be loading up my graveyard with a ton of recursion targets.

If nothing else, I hope I have demonstrated why chatGPT is not something you should be looking at for help with writing. The technology just isn't there yet, and I kind of hope it never gets there. Whether it's chatGPT creating a decklist that includes cards that simply don't exist, or lawyers in New York being sanctioned for submitting legal briefs that include citations from non-existent court cases, my takeaway is that it's neither ethical nor smart to use it as a way to help create content for any serious purpose. Using it will rob you of the learning and growth you gain from doing the work yourself. Lazy and stupid is no way to go through life.

The Falcon, Airship Restored | Commander | Stephen Johnson

• Commander (1)
• 1 The Falcon, Airship Restored

• Creatures (38)
• 1 Burnished Hart
• 1 Canoptek Spyder
• 1 Corpse Connoisseur
• 1 Crypt Ghast
• 1 Disciple of Bolas
• 1 Dockside Chef
• 1 Dread Presence
• 1 Fleshbag Marauder
• 1 Grim Haruspex
• 1 Grim Servant
• 1 Harvester of Souls
• 1 Leaden Myr
• 1 Marionette Master
• 1 Massacre Wurm
• 1 Merciless Executioner
• 1 Meteor Golem
• 1 Myr Battlesphere
• 1 Myr Retriever
• 1 Nirkana Revenant
• 1 Noxious Gearhulk
• 1 Pestilence Demon
• 1 Phyrexian Triniform
• 1 Pilgrim's Eye
• 1 Pitiless Plunderer
• 1 Platinum Emperion
• 1 Ravenous Chupacabra
• 1 Rune-Scarred Demon
• 1 Scion of Draco
• 1 Shadowgrange Archfiend
• 1 Sidisi, Undead Vizier
• 1 Skittering Surveyor
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Su-Chi Cave Guard
• 1 The Capitoline Triad
• 1 Triplicate Titan
• 1 Viscera Seer
• 1 Workshop Assistant
• 1 Zenith Chronicler

• Spells (11)
• 1 Darkness
• 1 Deadly Dispute
• 1 Deadly Rollick
• 1 Entomb
• 1 Reckoner's Bargain
• 1 Tragic Slip
• 1 Withering Torment
• 1 Damnation
• 1 Dread Return
• 1 Reanimate
• 1 Torment of Hailfire

• Enchantments (5)
• 1 Black Market Connections
• 1 Dark Prophecy
• 1 Phyrexian Arena
• 1 The Meathook Massacre
• 1 Vampiric Rites

• Artifacts (7)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Ashnod's Altar
• 1 Cranial Plating
• 1 Jet Medallion
• 1 Nim Deathmantle
• 1 Reckoner Bankbuster
• 1 Sol Ring

• Lands (38)
• 33 Swamp
• 1 Bojuka Bog
• 1 Buried Ruin
• 1 Cabal Coffers
• 1 Cabal Stronghold
• 1 Rogue's Passage

Buy This Deck Export text

I didn't include any game changers, but there are a few tutors and a combo wincon so this deck probably sits somewhere in bracket 3. I like to think we still have a 1-10 power scale, since it's easy to call a deck a "high 2" or a "low 3" and that essentially creates more subdivisions in what had been intended to be a simpler 5 bracket power scale. Powering this list down probably involves dropping out the combo line, but most of my decks are already lower powered "starting points" meant to be powered up to fit your meta.

If you do want to power this up, you can go in a few different directions. You could always load up on game changers, but the real nasty stuff my list is missing is cards like Grave Pact and Dictate of Ererbos. In any mono-Black deck it's also tempting to throw in a few Praetors and Bolas's Citadel but if you wanted to keep to my robots theme, Blightsteel Colossus could result in some easy kills after wiping the board.

Final Thoughts

I can guarantee that you'll never see another experiment in AI-generated writing or deck-building from me. As someone was in high school before the Internet was really a thing, I was never tempted by using chatGPT to cheat at writing papers. If you are tempted by such things, I think I've made it obvious where I stand.

You only get better as a writer by writing, and you only get better as a thinker by thinking. Whether my deck-building is better than what an AI platform can spit out may be a matter of debate, but at least I'm not running a deck that includes "Strix of the Fashionable Archive (prophet of fashion)".

I was able to play this list in a game on Tabletop Simulator. I started out with a Merciless Executioner on turn three and then brought back with The Falcon on turn five to slow everyone else down significantly. I was able to set up a neat little loop with Myr Retriever and Workshop Assistant, sacrificing them with Dockside Chef to draw cards and using their recursion death triggers to bring each other back. I stayed alive through the mid-game by using Corpse Connoisseur to bin [card]Platinum Emperion" href="/p/Magic+The+Gathering/Platinum Emperion" href="/p/Magic+The+Gathering/[card]Platinum Emperion">[card]Platinum Emperion">Platinum Emperion" href="/p/Magic+The+Gathering/[card]Platinum Emperion">[card]Platinum Emperion and using The Falcon to put it into play. A Cabal Stronghold powered me through some big turns and I ended up winning on the back of a 21 mana Torment of Hailfire.

I think this could be a really fun casual EDH deck - especially if you're into having a little fun with a few Star Wars themed alters (digital or hand painted). I'm still thinking Chupacabra as Chewbacca for some reason, and Pitiless Plunderer as Han Solo, but I could probably be talked into other choices.

In true Stephen Johnson fashion, I'll end on this.

That's all I've got for today. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!