How to Choose Your First Tarot Deck
Picking your first tarot deck can seem daunting. There are so many questions that come up, and it can be overwhelming to sort through them all. Do you go classic or get something more artistic? Do you need a guidebook? What makes tarot decks different from one another, anyway?
Not to worry, I'll walk through some of my best practices for selecting your first tarot deck and provide some specific deck suggestions, too.
First of all, it's a common myth that in order to have your tarot deck really work you have to have it given to you instead of buying it yourself. I am living proof that this is complete crap. Go ahead and buy your own deck! Especially at the beginning, I think it's more important to get something you trust than to receive a gifted deck with a history you know nothing about. One of my close friends bought a used deck once and lets just say it was a less than ideal experience and she had to throw it out within a month of purchasing it.
It's much better to get a brand new deck with imagery that feels good to you, and because it's brand new, you'll know it went from the producer to a warehouse to you, and that's it. Not saying that we should suspect every single person that wants to give us a tarot deck, but we aren't always sure of the energy someone has knowingly or unknowingly attached to your deck before giving it to you, even if it is brand new. You wont want to spend your first few spreads wondering what feels so off only to realize your deck is full of the gift-giver's energy.
That being said, in my experience, different types of tarot artwork can have different vibes and energies. For your first tarot deck, you'll want to find something you feel confident you can connect to. Having a reaction like "I don't know, I just really like that one" is what we're going for here. If you're a complete beginner, meaning you don't have a lot of prior knowledge of what the cards mean, you'll also want to opt for something that comes with a guide book.
The Classic Rider-Waite Deck: Traditional Tarot
This classic deck is a reprint of the original Rider Waite (or Rider Waite Smith) deck originally designed and popularized in 1910. This deck showcases high-quality prints of the traditional imagery for each card. Though it's not trendy and new, this deck is great for beginners who have yet to master the meaning of many cards. It's a great deck to learn tarot with and then graduate to a less traditional deck. The guide book is also extremely beginner friendly as it offers pretty clear and concise meanings for each card without too much poetry and fluff. For deeper and more nuanced meanings, you can always Google specific cards anyway.
IDEAL FOR: new tarot readers that want to get a base knowledge of how the deck works.
NOT GREAT FOR: readers that want to test their intuition skills more than grow their knowledge of tarot.
Unique Artwork & A Detailed Guide Book: The Wild Unknown Tarot
This deck features simple, yet non-traditional artwork that has the appearance of felt-tip pen sketches. I love the guide book that comes with this deck because it touches on traditional meanings of cards and weaves in the artist's intentions as well. This specific box-set is also pretty inexpensive coming in at just under $28.
IDEAL FOR: someone who has been interested in tarot and read about it for a while and is now starting to read for themselves or friends.
NOT GREAT FOR: complete tarot newbies that don't know the major arcana from the minor arcana or aren't familiar with the traditional suits.
Modern Tarot to Push Your Intuition: Mystic Mondays Tarot
I absolutely love this modern and colorful deck, and though I don't have it myself it is definitely on my wish list! I have seen friends use it and have had a chance to get familiar with it, though. This deck is wonderful for someone who is very playful in nature and doesn't want to take their tarot reading too seriously. It's great for someone who doesn't care too much about learning the traditional art and instead wants to use tarot to develop their intuition. This deck also comes with a guide book to jog your intuition and give you a sense of what each card is traditionally about.
IDEAL FOR: a tarot beginner that doesn't want to play by the rules...not now, not ever.
NOT GREAT FOR: someone that is interested in learning the traditional art of tarot or isn't comfortable with trusting their intuition to read just yet.
Don't Break the Bank: Every Day Tarot by Brigit Esselmont
If you search any tarot card meaning on Google, chances are that the first hit is from Brigit Esselmont's website. An intuitive tarot reader herself, Esselmont designed this deck to highlight and preserve the main symbols on every card, while modernizing the aesthetic and favoring minimalism. This deck is wonderful for beginners because it also comes with a detailed guide book that includes sample spreads as well. Plus, it doesn't hurt that this deck is less than $10, so if you're on the fence about purchasing a tarot deck, this is a great one to get just to try it out and see if you like it at all without making a major commitment. The cards are also on the smaller side when it comes to tarot decks, making it great for folks that have yet to hone their shuffling skills.
IDEAL FOR: tarot beginners on the fence about committing to a tarot practice; complete newbies that want to learn from the ground up.
NOT GREAT FOR: beginners that want to have fun with tarot and not get so bogged down in the symbolism of every card.
Final Thoughts
These are just a few of my recommendations of decks that are great for anyone who is starting out as a tarot reader. Of course, you're more than welcome to explore beyond these recommendations and go with anything else that speaks to you. My first deck was the Uusi Pagan Otherworlds Tarot, which I have used for the Weekly Tarot spreads so far. While it is a beautiful deck that I found to be really useful as I learned tarot, it is really expensive ($58 for the deck, an extra $25 for the guide book).
There are many artists that design similarly priced decks, and if that calls to you, go for it! In my case, I had been saving up for an indie tarot deck for a few weeks before I purchased mine so I was able to invest in one, and even so, I chose a deck that is very, very close to the traditional Rider Waite imagery.
Later on, I added other less traditional decks to my collection, for example, the Native American Tarot deck is probably my most sacred and most beloved, but also least traditional. If I had started with that one as my first deck, I might have given up rather quickly out of frustration. In my experience, it helps a lot to have cards that are at the very least named in accordance to the traditional major and minor arcana because then when you get stuck on a card, you have a plethora of definitions and interpretations on the internet. When you have a card that has creative names for each card -- like, instead of Wheel of Fortune it has Aztec Calendar -- you wont have much to go on besides the limited guide book and your own feelings. That might be exactly the kind of experience you're going for, though! Only you can really decide which deck is best for you.
Which tarot deck was your first? If you're working on choosing your first deck, what are you looking for in your first set? Let me know in the comments!