How to Choose Your First Tarot Deck: What I Tell Every Beginner
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| Tarot Deck |
The question arrives in my inbox regularly — from students, from readers just beginning their practice, from people who've been curious about tarot for years and have finally decided to start.
"How do I choose my first tarot deck?"
It sounds like a simple question. But it comes with a weight that I recognize immediately — because the answer, in the tarot world, is often more complicated than it needs to be.
There are hundreds of decks available. Thousands, if you count independent artists and small publishers. Every tarot community has strong opinions. Every experienced reader seems to have a different recommendation. And underneath all of it is a worry that I hear in almost every version of this question:
What if I choose wrong?
After twenty years of tarot practice — and of watching students navigate exactly this decision — I want to give you the clearest, most practical answer I can.
There are really only a few things that actually matter. And most of what people worry about doesn't matter at all.
Why the First Deck Decision Feels So Hard
The tarot world has a complicated relationship with the "right" deck.
Some traditions hold that your first deck should be gifted to you — that buying your own is bad luck. Some readers insist that only certain decks are appropriate for beginners. Some communities have strong loyalties to specific publishers or artists, and strong opinions about everything else.
And then there's the sheer volume of options. Walk into any metaphysical bookstore or spend twenty minutes on an online retailer, and you'll encounter decks themed around everything from classic symbolism to pop culture to botanical illustration to specific cultural traditions. Each one looks different. Each one promises a different kind of reading experience.
It's genuinely overwhelming. And the weight of "getting it right" makes a decision that should be intuitive feel like a test.
I want to simplify this considerably. Because in twenty years of watching people learn tarot, I've noticed something: the deck almost never matters as much as people think it will. What matters is what you do with it.
The Only Thing That Actually Matters
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| The Fool |
Before I tell you what to look for, I want to tell you the single most important criterion — the one that, in my experience, determines more than anything else whether a beginner's practice develops or stalls.
**You need to be able to read the story in the card.**
You Need to Be Able to See the Story
Tarot is a visual language. The images on the cards are not decoration — they are the primary source of meaning. A skilled reader doesn't look at a card and recall a memorized definition. They look at the card and read what they see.
This means that for a beginner, the most important feature of a deck is this: when you look at a card, can you see something happening? Is there a scene, a story, a figure doing something that you can interpret?
Decks that show pip cards — the numbered cards of the Minor Arcana — as simple geometric arrangements (three cups, seven swords) rather than illustrated scenes are significantly harder for beginners to read intuitively. You can learn with them. But you'll be relying more heavily on memorization and less on the intuitive reading that tarot is designed to develop.
The Rider-Waite Tradition — Why I Recommend It for Beginners
The most widely recommended beginner deck — and the one I recommend most often — is a deck in the Rider-Waite-Smith tradition.
The original Rider-Waite-Smith deck, illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith in 1909, was the first tarot deck to illustrate all 78 cards with fully realized scenes. Every card — including all 56 Minor Arcana cards — shows figures in situations that can be read and interpreted visually.
This matters enormously for beginners. Because when you can see a story in the card, you can begin to read intuitively — before you've memorized anything. The image gives you somewhere to start.
Additionally, the Rider-Waite tradition is the most thoroughly documented in tarot literature. Every book, every online resource, every established tarot course uses this tradition as its foundation. When you learn with a Rider-Waite deck, you have access to an enormous body of supporting material.
I'm not saying other decks aren't beautiful, valid, or meaningful. I'm saying that for a beginner, a Rider-Waite tradition deck removes the most common obstacles to developing an intuitive practice.
What About Non-Traditional Decks?
If you encounter a deck that isn't in the Rider-Waite tradition — one that uses different symbolism, different structure, or abstract imagery — my honest advice is this: save it for your second deck.
Not because it's lesser. But because learning tarot and learning a non-traditional deck simultaneously creates two learning curves at once. Once you have a foundational understanding of tarot — once you know the cards well enough that you're reading them rather than studying them — a non-traditional deck becomes a rich and interesting new lens. Before that foundation exists, it mostly adds confusion.
The Three Questions I Ask Every Beginner
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| Choosing a Tarot Deck |
When a student comes to me asking about their first deck, I ask them three questions. The answers almost always lead them to the right choice.
Question 1 — Does This Deck Make You Want to Pick It Up?
This sounds obvious. It isn't.
A tarot practice only develops through consistent use. You have to want to sit with the cards — to pull them out in the morning, to reach for them when you're navigating something, to spend time with them when there's no urgency at all.
If a deck doesn't create that pull — if it's beautiful in theory but doesn't make you want to actually hold it and use it — it won't build a practice. It'll sit on a shelf.
When you're looking at decks, pay attention to the physical response. Does this deck make you curious? Does it make you want to open it, to look through the cards, to spend time with the images? That response — or the absence of it — is information.
Question 2 — Can You Read the Cards Without the Guidebook?
This is the practical test I find most useful.
Look at several cards from the deck — ideally including a few Minor Arcana numbered cards, not just the Major Arcana. Without looking at the guidebook, try to describe what you see. What's happening in the image? What does the figure look like they're feeling? What is the scene suggesting?
If you can find something to say — even if it's uncertain, even if it feels like guessing — the deck is giving you something to work with. Your intuition has something to grip.
If the cards feel opaque — if you look at them and find nothing to interpret — that deck will slow your development, not support it.
Question 3 — Does This Deck Feel Like Yours?
This is the least tangible of the three questions — and the one I've come to trust most.
There's a quality that some decks have for some people: a sense of recognition. Of fit. Of "this is mine." It doesn't always make logical sense. But I've watched students develop remarkable practices with decks that, on paper, weren't the most beginner-appropriate — because that sense of fit created a depth of engagement that overcame every practical obstacle.
And I've watched students struggle with technically excellent beginner decks because something in the imagery never felt quite right.
If you hold a deck and feel that sense of recognition — trust it. It's not superstition. It's attention to what actually draws you in and keeps you engaged.
What I Actually Recommend
After twenty years, these are the decks I recommend most consistently — with the caveat that the right deck is always the one that works for you.
For the Complete Beginner
The **Rider-Waite-Smith deck** in any of its standard editions. The imagery is classic, thoroughly documented, and designed specifically to be read intuitively. Every learning resource you encounter will be based on this deck. It's the foundation.
If the traditional artwork doesn't resonate with you visually, look for a **modern Rider-Waite tradition deck** — one that uses the same card structure and symbolic system but with contemporary illustration. There are dozens of beautiful options that preserve the readability of the original while offering a visual style that might feel more like yours.
For the Visual Learner
If you're someone who learns through imagery — who processes meaning visually and responds strongly to art — look for a Rider-Waite tradition deck with illustration that genuinely moves you. The goal is a deck where you could spend time with individual cards simply because the images draw you in.
The more engaged you are with the imagery, the more naturally the intuitive reading will develop.
For Someone Who Wants Something More Personal
If you've looked at traditional decks and none of them feel like yours — if something about the classic imagery doesn't connect — spend time looking at independent artist decks that use the Rider-Waite structure.
The tarot community has produced an extraordinary range of artist decks in the past decade: decks that use different cultural contexts, different aesthetic traditions, different representations of the figures. Many of them are built on the same symbolic foundation as the original Rider-Waite, which means they're readable and documented — while offering imagery that feels more specifically yours.
What Doesn't Matter as Much as You Think
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| Tarot Decks |
Now I want to address the things that people worry about most — and that, in my experience, matter least.
**Whether the deck was gifted or purchased.** The tradition of receiving your first deck as a gift is a beautiful one. It is not a requirement. I've seen extraordinary practices built on self-purchased decks, and I've seen gifted decks sit unused because they weren't the right fit. What matters is the practice, not the acquisition story.
**The age or edition of the deck.** A first-edition vintage deck is not more powerful than a current printing. The cards are the cards. What they show you depends on how you read them, not on when they were printed.
**What other people think of your choice.** The tarot community has strong opinions. Some of those opinions are useful. Some are gatekeeping dressed up as tradition. The deck that builds your practice is the right deck — regardless of what anyone else thinks of it.
**Whether you feel "ready."** This is the one I hear most often, and the one I want to address most directly. There is no ready. There is only beginning. The practice develops through use — through pulling cards, sitting with images, making mistakes, noticing patterns, and gradually building the intuitive fluency that makes tarot useful. That process begins the moment you start. Not before.
The Question I'm Asked Most About First Decks
Before I close, I want to address the question that arrives in my inbox more than any other when it comes to first decks:
"Is it okay if I don't understand all the cards yet?"
Yes. It is not only okay — it is expected.
No one understands all 78 cards when they begin. No one should. The cards reveal themselves over time, through use, through the situations they appear in, through the questions they get asked. Some cards that felt opaque at first become the ones you trust most. Some that seemed clear at first reveal layers you hadn't initially seen.
Understanding tarot is not a destination you arrive at before you start reading. It's what happens as you read.
So choose a deck that makes you want to pick it up. Find one where you can see something happening in the cards. Trust the sense of fit if it's there.
And then begin.
Everything else follows from that.
What was your first tarot deck — or what deck are you considering?
Tell me in the comments. I read every single one. 🌙
🌙 Luna ✨
📖 Coming Up Next
In the next post, we look at one of the most misunderstood cards in the Major Arcana — The Tower. Most people fear it the way they fear the Death card. But after twenty years of readings, I've come to see it very differently.
Stay tuned. 🌙
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