Tarot 101: Choosing a Deck — The Willow Path Tarot

I love tarot decks. One of the most fun things for me in the whole wide world is getting a new tarot deck. I love looking at the different images and seeing the variety and deciding on a new deck purchase. It’s exciting! It can open up a fresh world of possibilities and potentials.

So how do I choose a deck? And how might you go about choosing your FIRST tarot deck? Here are some simple steps to choosing a tarot deck for yourself.

Step One: Choose a Rider Waite Smith Based Deck

The Rider Waite Smith deck is the most popular out there. Most decks are based on it or are variations on its system and symbolism. Also, most of the books teaching tarot are written about this deck. If you are just starting out learning to read tarot, the Rider Waite Smith is the easiest and most accessible deck to choose.

You could even go as basic and traditional as to get the actual Rider Waite Smith deck. This is the first deck I ever purchased and I still use it today, 30 years later! These are the cards you see in movies and TV shows. For people who don’t know anything much about tarot, these are the images people think of first when they think of tarot.

Pamela Coleman Smith did the illustrations for this deck and I just love her. If I could go back in time and have dinner with someone, it would be Pixie, as she was known to her friends. I’d love to hear all about her process for creating these images and all about her life as an artist at the beginning of the 1900s.

The Rider Waite Smith deck and its various different colorings and shadings are published by US Games, Inc. and are available at almost any bookstore or metaphysical shop that sells tarot decks. They are easy to find and are the most affordable deck out there as well.

Of course, you don’t have to start out with a Rider Waite Smith deck. This is just my suggestion and humble opinion because it’s what I did and it worked out great for me. Many other people have started out with a Marseilles deck or a Thoth deck or just playing cards and have connected with their deck and learned to read tarot beautifully. Choose your own adventure, it’s your life!

Step Two: Look at Lots of Decks Online

If you want to branch out from the original Rider Waite Smith (RWS) deck, or its imagery just doesn’t resonate with you, get online and look for variations on this deck. The majority of decks out there are variations or adaptation of the RWS. You’ll be able use the same books and symbolism for these other decks as for the original. To figure out if a deck is RWS based, read descriptions of the deck. Searching online is fun and easy and will help you find a deck that really speaks to you.

One easy place to look at decks online is social media. You don’t have to have an account to hop on Instagram or Pinterest and search for “tarot”. Just run that search and then scroll through the results. When you see a card image you are drawn to, look for the name of that deck. Oftentimes there will even be a hashtag for the name of the deck with the image. Then you can click on that hashtag and find lots of images of different cards from that deck. Or you can search for the deck on your favorite web browser and find more images of it that way.

Some of my tarot deck collection: Shadowscapes, Deviant Moon, Zombie Tarot, The Wild Unknown, The Spacious Tarot, Meraki Tarot, and Ostara Tarot.

You also may want to try Kickstarter or Etsy to search for independent tarot decks. It’s fun to look on Kickstarter and see what is being created right at this moment. You can get in on supporting the creation of the deck from the get go and help an artist make their tarot dreams come true.

I recommend looking at a lot of different cards in a deck before deciding to purchase it. You may see one or two cards you love but then get a bad feeling about the rest of the deck. This is actually an excellent time to practice using your intuition! How do the card images make you feel? Do you resonate with the images? Do meanings and words come to mind when you look at them? Do you feel inspired, drawn in, good inside, or a sense of knowing when you look at the images? Listen in to your intuition as you peruse a deck online.

After you’ve found a few decks that you like the looks of, you can also find reviews of those decks online. Just try searching for the name of the deck. You may find tarot readers who write blog posts or make videos on YouTube, etc. Be careful to note if the reviewer is giving an honest review or is perhaps getting paid to leave a good review. Any kind of review can be valuable, it’s just a good idea to know the bias of the reviewer.

Sometimes you will get lucky and find a reviewer that makes a video flipping through each card in the deck. Then you get to see the whole thing! I love this type of review.

Overall, I think it is super important to enjoy the imagery of your tarot deck. Perhaps it is not 100% necessary to love your card images to give a good reading, but it sure helps! The more you like the imagery of your deck, the more you will want to look at the deck. If your goal is to do good tarot readings, the more you enjoy looking at your deck, the more you will want to practice, which leads to better readings.

Step Three: Narrow it Down by Preference

Once you find a deck or a bunch of decks that resonate with you, you may want to ask yourself a few additional questions:

Does this deck have the representation that I desire?
Does the theme of this deck feel useful or constricting?
Do I want to support the maker of this deck?
Can I afford this deck?

First off, there are a lot of tarot decks out there that just show cis-gendered, heterosexual, white people on the cards. You may find that you don’t resonate with that representation or it feels too constricting. Of course, it may work just find for you, the people are just symbolic or whatever. There are decks out there that show different races, sexualities, types of bodies, etc. If seeing diverse representation or seeing yourself in the cards is important, take this into consideration now.

Zombie tarot deck: I love this one but I don’t read with it everyday!

There are lots of decks out there that follow a theme: Alice in Wonderland, Star Wars, zombie apocalypse, all unicorns, all cats, Greek Mythology, housewives, houseplants, all pasta! I mean, we might be coming up on a time when there is a tarot deck about everything. You may want to work with a tarot deck that has zombies on it every day, but maybe you only resonate with that in October. You may super love cats but find that tarot cards with cats on them don’t really speak to you. If you’re going to pick a themed deck like this, consider how you’re going to use it first and then you’ll have a clear purpose for your purchase.

It can be fun to find out who made your tarot deck. Was it a team of people? One artist? A fellow tarot reader? When you find a deck you like, you can see if that creator has an Instagram page or a website and check them out. Finding out about the personality of the deck creator may add something to your understanding of the cards. Also, if it matters to you where your money is going or what the creator’s intention was behind the deck, find these things out!

And lastly, not all decks cost the same amount. If finances are of concern to you, pick a deck with a lower price tag! There are masses of lovely decks that are made by big producers and have lower prices. Generally, indie decks are going to cost a bit more because the creator isn’t ordering in large quantities that can bring the price down, and they may be taking a higher cut of the profits in order to sustain their career as an artist. There is no reason to go broke over tarot decks. Please don’t.

Step Four: Purchasing Your Deck

I have never been to a metaphysical store or other shop that allows you to flip through a tarot deck before purchasing it. For this reason, I don’t recommend going to a physical store to look for a tarot deck. First look online, and when you find what you are looking for, you can then support your local store and ask them to order it for you. If you live near a shop that sells tarot decks, it’s always a good idea to shop local and make that purchase to support a store that is making tarot more accessible to people in your area.

One of my favorite indie decks is the Spacious Tarot which costs $54 on the thespacioustarot.com website. Don’t buy a knock off for $19 on Amazon!!

If you are going to order your deck online, be aware that there are a lot of copycat decks out there. These are unscrupulous people who steal tarot deck artwork, print it cheaply, and then sell the tarot decks for much less money than the copyright holders. For some reason, this is really hard to crack down on and there are lots of copycats decks out there.

Do your homework. Find out who made the deck you want to buy. Copy cats mostly target independent deck creators. Find the creator’s website which will tell you how to buy the legitimate deck. If you’re confused, shoot them an email and any indie deck creator will help you find a reputable source of their deck. Most sell direct from their websites.

Just as a point of reference, a mass produced deck that you can buy at Barnes and Noble will cost somewhere between $20-$40 usually. Indie decks tend to run more around the $60-80 range. Of course, there will be exceptions but if you’re seeing an independently produced deck on Amazon for $20- it’s a fake and stay away. You’re not only hurting an independent artist, but you’re going to get a deck that isn’t made of quality materials.

Step Five: Remember to Enjoy the Process!

Choosing a tarot deck is fun. It just is! Whether it’s the first deck or the 100th, each one feels like a new and cherished part of the family. It will support you, guide you, and give you excellent advice if you listen to its messages. It has so much it wants to share with you!

Part of my tarot deck collection! It's a relatively small collection but I really love all of these :) Some I store in their original boxes if it's a good box, otherwise I store them in little drawstring bags that I make myself. You can buy them on Etsy.

Once you get into tarot, it’s hard not to collect decks. You will have so much fun with your deck that you’ll think, “I could have even more fun if I had two decks!” And it just goes on from there.

You don’t have to collect decks to work with and love tarot, though! I had one deck for the first 20 years that I read tarot and that was perfect for me.

I like to keep a list on the Notes app on my phone of tarot decks that I’m interested in buying. Each time I see one on Instagram that looks amazing, I add it to the list. Then, when I’m in the market for a new addition to the tarot collection family, I go through the list and see which one is calling to me most at that time.

Ok, that’s all for now. This blog post has made me want to go explore decks on my list! I’m not in the market for a deck right now, but it’s always fun to fantasize about a whole room full of decks!

What deck do you have your eye on right now?