The Decks

It’s tempting to skip past this one for something prettier. But it’s the deck all the others are speaking to, and you hear them better once you know it — the way a word makes more sense once you’ve learned enough of the language around it.

Pamela Colman Smith gave every card a full scene, including the numbered cards that earlier decks left as plain arrangements of cups, wands, swords, and coins — that was the innovation, in 1909, and it’s the reason a beginner can read this deck at all without memorising a hundred abstract meanings first. The Ten of Swords just shows you the wound. You don’t need anyone to explain it. Every deck on this page owes it something, and most of them know it.

This edition, from Arcturus’s Sirius imprint (2022), pairs the 78 cards with a 48-page book.

Based on the publisher’s details and the deck’s published imagery; we haven’t read with this edition ourselves. Price is the Waterstones list price, checked October 2026. Sources: Waterstones, Simon & Schuster.

Shadow work built into the deck itself. It’s a Rider-Waite-Smith-style deck in which you take the role of a witch entering the dark wood to meet your shadow self — the secret desires and unexamined corners of the psyche — with Sasha Graham’s full-colour guidebook carrying that work into the readings. Abigail Larson, a Hugo Award-winning illustrator of dark fantasy, drew the forest, and it’s striking without being theatrical. There is something about having to pass through the trees to reach your answer that feels right.

This is the introspective deck, the one that asks the harder questions and refuses to let you skim past them. Published by Llewellyn in 2020.

Based on the publisher’s and retailer’s descriptions and the deck’s published artwork; we haven’t read with this deck ourselves. Price checked October 2026. Sources: The Psychic Tree, Abigail Larson, Llewellyn.

Plants as portals to meaning — a Rider-Waite-Smith-style deck set in a witch’s garden, painted in soft watercolour by Natasa Ilincic: cottage gardens, high summer, things growing and reaching for the light. Sasha Graham is one of the most thoughtful voices in contemporary tarot, and the deck is built around cultivating your own intuition the way you’d tend a garden.

It reads as if it were made for this exact corner of the world — the place where Myrtle’s plants and Mist’s practice meet. The 78 cards come with a full-colour companion book.

Based on the retailer’s description and the deck’s published artwork; we haven’t read with this deck ourselves. Price checked October 2026. Source: The Psychic Tree.

Medieval figures, borderless cards, rich digital colour — it’s a sensory experience before you’ve even drawn a card. It’s rooted in the Rider-Waite-Smith tradition, so the symbolism is familiar, but the artwork makes every reading feel considered and unhurried.

It looks as good laid out on display as it does in a spread. Ciro Marchetti has a way of making the traditional feel entirely new. The current borderless edition from Llewellyn comes with a 224-page guidebook by Barbara Moore, covering upright and reversed meanings.

Based on the retailer’s description and the deck’s published artwork; we haven’t read with this deck ourselves. Price (£20, reduced from £27) checked October 2026. Source: The Tarot Shop UK.

Seventy-eight cat-themed cards, sold as a beginner’s deck and a party game in one. That’s the point: it’s the least intimidating way in, and an inexpensive one.

Not every reading needs to be a ritual. Sometimes you just want to shuffle something light-hearted and let the cards surprise you. Amazon carries several similar cat decks, so check the cards and guidebook in the listing before you buy.

Based on the Amazon listing; we haven’t read with this deck ourselves. Amazon prices change often, so check the current price. Source: Amazon UK listing.

Seventy-eight gold-edged cards in a classic Rider-Waite-style design, with a vintage look that manages to feel timeless rather than dated, and a 91-page guidebook. The cards are 70 × 120mm on 350gsm card. It does exactly what it promises: a straightforward deck that teaches you tarot without getting in the way.

It’s the deck for a reading without ceremony — plain, honest imagery, which is harder to achieve than it looks.

Based on the seller’s product details; we haven’t read with this deck ourselves. Amazon prices change often, so check the current price. Sources: Amazon UK listing, Toytooth.

The structure underneath is still Rider Waite Smith; Chris-Anne kept the bones and rebuilt the skin. Swords still cut. The Tower still falls. But the palette is warm instead of shadowed, and the figures look like they might be glad to see you.

That makes it the deck to hand someone who has always said tarot “isn’t for them” — and the one for the days you want the same honesty without quite so much weather in it. Published by Hay House in 2019, it comes as 78 cards with a guidebook.

Based on the publisher’s details and the deck’s published artwork; we haven’t read with this deck ourselves. UK price range (RRP £21.99) checked October 2026. Sources: Bookshop.org UK, Books2Door.