An improved formula considering the deformation effect for the \(\alpha\) -decay half-lives is proposed based on WKB barrier penetrability. Using the quadrupole deformation values of the daughter nuclei obtained from the WS4 and FRDM models in the improved formula, the root mean square deviation (RMSD) between the calculated results and experimental data decreased from 0.456 to 0.413 and 0.415, respectively. Although the improved formula did not significantly reduce the overall RMSD, it produced results that better matched the experimental values for nuclei with larger deformations. Additionally, eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) models were employed to further reduce the deviations between the calculated \(\alpha\) -decay half-lives and experimental data, with the corresponding RMSDs decreasing from 0.413 to 0.295 and from 0.415 to 0.302, respectively. Furthermore, the improved empirical formula and XGBoost models were used to predict the \(\alpha\) -decay half-lives of nuclei with Z = 117, 118, 119, and 120. The results suggest that N = 184 is the magic number.
