Best Tarot Decks For Beginners
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The Best Tarot Decks
As with most things, including when choosing a Tarot deck, the “best” is whichever appeals to you the most. Resonating with the imagery will ensure that the messages the cards are trying to give you will be understood and absorbed by you more quickly. It’s also important to like the look of the cards so you like to use them! Having said that, there are literally thousands of possibilities available to you when picking a style (with everything from a Friends to a Hello Kitty theme), but the vast majority of them will be based on the Rider Waite Smith one.
This is a style of Tarot that was painted by artist Pamela Colman Smith in the early 1900s, all both of them (her and commissioner Arthur Waite) being members of the secret society The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. This style draws on earlier Italian decks but is also infused with archetypes, Astrology, and Numerology - read more about Tarotstrology: How Tarot and Astrology are linked; and Numerology in the Tarot. It’s the classic style you will likely be vaguely familiar even if you’ve never picked up a deck before.
Academic and mystic Arthur Edward Waite gave Pamela Smith detailed instructions on how to design the 22 Major Arcana cards, but left her free artistic license to paint the 56 pictorial Minor Arcana cards that have come to be so influential and fundamental to the Tarot we know and love today. Most other decks before that simply had plain pip cards, i.e. the 4 of Pentacles simply had 4 coins on it, not the rich imagery that make reading RWS so intuitive and insightful. Because of this, she is really an icon in the Tarot world!
And so, for beginners when learning to read Tarot cards it is always highly recommended to first start out with a classic Smith Rider Waite deck (of which there are also a few variations), while you are learning the basics, and then you can move on to other decks if you like (but many readers- myself included!- continue to use this classic deck as well).
There is also another system called Thoth. This was created by esotericist Aleister Crowley and Lady Frieda Harris with some variations on the RWS. It has a slightly different system and also includes symbolism of Qabbalah, alchemy, geometry, and colour, as well as Astrology, Numerology, and archetypes. I personally love to use this deck as well although the pip cards 1-10 are not pictorial and so can be a little harder for beginners to grasp their meaning. Moving on to Thoth-based Tarot decks is better after you are comfortable with the Smith Rider Waite deck and RWS derivatives.
Read on below for my list of the top 9 decks for I recommend for beginners, including a variety of styles from surrealist to minimalist:
Best Tarot Decks For Beginners
When buying your first Tarot deck, as mentioned, it is important to go with first and foremost what appeals to you aesthetically so that it is easier for you to build a connection with the cards. Try to always choose a reputable seller so that you know they will be in good condition, and don’t forget to cleanse them before you do a Tarot reading! Read our post on The Top 5 Ways To Cleanse Your Tarot Deck.
Here are my favourite beginner Tarot cards:
1. Smith Rider Waite Tarot Deck
As mentioned, this is the ultimate best for the beginner Tarot reader as it is the foundation from which almost all other tarot card decks are created. However, there are some slight variations of the standard Smith Rider Waite, and my absolute favourite (which I use most in my client readings) is the Centennial Edition. This is SUCH a beautiful deck because it comes in the original muted colours, which I just adore, and the back is stunning! Often I find it quite difficult for the backs of the cards to be as beautiful as the front, but this one doesn’t fail to deliver. It also comes in a lovely tin box which is super handy for keep them safe for storage, as well as two of Pixie’s (as Pamela Colman Smith was colloquially known) personal artwork cards. There are other popular renditions of the RWS including the Radiant Rider Waite Smith, and the Classic Rider Waite Smith.
2. True Heart Intuitive Tarot by Rachel True
I absolutely LOVE this deck, it’s so imaginative and vividly designed, it has a surrealist tinge to it that I think is great for really embodying the message of the card, especially for beginners- it’s really useful for quickly intuiting the meaning. It also comes with a really good book that she wrote to go along with it detailing moments of her life as examples to help understand how the cards can play out in real situations (they’re created by the actress from The Craft!). Another modern and inclusive approach is Fifth Spirit and The Next World.
3. The Moonchild Tarot by Danielle Noel
This may potentially be a bit more advanced but they’re just so beautiful I couldn’t resist including them in the list. While the correlation to RWS traditional meanings may not be immediately obvious, it is also really nice to have photographic cards with people on them to help personify the messages. Their other-wordly, fantasy theme is also great for letting your own imagination run wild a bit. They too come with a really beautiful booklet that includes how to work with the phases of the Moon, unique spreads, and other magic.
4. The Wild Unknown Tarot Deck
While I don’t personally use these cards, they are wildly popular. They feature Spirit Animals as the archetypes for the messages of the cards and are a lovely soft introduction to some of Tarot’s more difficult cards. There is great wisdom and medicine to be found in their pages! These are a nice option for doing a one-pull daily draw so you are gifted with some wisdom that is a bit more uplifting.
5. The Fountain Deck
I find this deck so beautiful, it’s got an ethereal modern kind of art deco style to it that I find really alluring. This is a good deck if you prefer less cartoony style and something a little more mystical looking. They come with a lovely box and guidebook, and the backs of the cards are also really cool! They are also a nice long size, making them easier to handle and shuffle (some decks can be a little big and clunky).
6. Thoth Tarot Deck by Aleister Crowly and Lady Frieda Harris
I know I said these are a bit more advanced, but when you are ready they really are worth expanding with! These stunning works of art were created over 5 years during wartime Britain. Aleister Crowley was a controversial occultist who dedicated many hours of research for this deck, as did Lady Frieda Harris- who had a spiritual experience with the cards themselves, almost taking on a life of their own. They are painted in a beautiful art deco style (sometimes up to eight times!) with lovely, evocative imagery and colours. Using non-pictorial pip cards can be useful for beginners sometimes if you find the imagery on RWS-derived decks to be too graphic, especially for trauma-based reasons, even though they do require you to a have a firmer grasp on their meanings. They can also help deepen your understanding with Astrology in an easy way because the symbols are painted directly on the cards.
To learn more about the world of Tarot, enrol in my Intuitive Tarot Course!
7. Animal Totem Tarot
This is a super cute deck I really like because it comes with an app as well as a guidebook and is a lovely way to gain a deeper understanding of the archetypes of the cards. I find that viewing each card as a specific animal with its natural quirks really helps solidify the essence of that card’s meaning! It’s also a super uplifting deck with less of the more dramatic cards of the Tarot, so is more accessible to some people. Visualising what each card would be like as an animal in its natural habitat is a useful way to help cement their meanings as well as adding another layer of information. Each card also comes with a little motto of what that archetype’s would be, this is useful for getting a snapshot of the message. This is a slightly lesser known deck so it’s always nice to support smaller artists as well!
8. Pagan Otherworlds Tarot by Uusi
I love this deck because it’s old-school yet modern looking at the same time. It features a really vintage, antique vibe to it that helps the practice feel more like a sacred ritual when using them. These also come with beautiful Moon phase cards to pair them with which stage of cycle you are in, it’s a really useful way to add extra detail to your interpretations!
9. The Good Karma Deck
There’s a lovely soft whimsy to these cards, they’re drawn in what’s reminiscent of children’s book illustrations and feature modern, inclusive interpretations of the images. For an even simpler, modern version (that’s almost surrealist), the Apparition Deck is a good option too.
Other popular traditional decks include the Robin Wood Tarot deck and the Morgan Greer Tarot, the Everyday Tarot Mini deck by Biddy Tarot, and The Modern Witch’s inclusive deck, and Mystic Monday’s modern deck, although I don’t personally use these.
Other decks that I find simply beautiful but are perhaps a bit more advanced as they don’t include such familiar imagery so you need to be comfortable with their inherent meanings: are Terra Soleil, Ethereal Visions, Tattoo Tarot, and Accurate AF. And if you want a cartomancy crossover, Illuminated Playing Cards are an awesome version.
Once you’ve found your deck, don’t forget to check out our Complete List of Tarot Card Meanings, or get our comprehensive Tarot For Beginners Guidebook to deepen your studies.
If you would like me to interpret the cards for you personally, book in a private session with me here, I look forward to connecting with you!
So those are my top 9 favourite decks for beginners (along with a few others!) and why I find them useful and beautiful at the same time (because for me they have to tick both off the list)! I hope you find it helpful, I’m always on the hunt for new decks so if you have any other suggestions I’d love to hear them in the comments section below. Or, if you have any other questions, I’m happy to try and answer them :)
For more tips, check out our post on How To Read Tarot Reversals, and The Best Tarot Spreads for Beginners!
