How to Choose Your First Tarot Deck: A Practical Guide

There is a lot of advice about choosing a first tarot deck, and most of it is about vibes.

Some of it is worse than useless: the idea that a deck must be gifted has put people off starting for years. The practical considerations are narrower than the internet suggests, and once you know them the decision takes about ten minutes.

This is what actually matters, and what does not.

The one thing that matters most

Buy a deck with illustrated pips.

The "pips" are the numbered minor arcana: Ace through Ten in each of the four suits. That is 40 of the 78 cards, more than half the deck.

In some traditional decks, those 40 cards are illustrated like playing cards: the Five of Cups is simply five cups arranged on the card. Nothing is happening. There is no scene to read.

In an illustrated-pip deck, the Five of Cups shows a figure in a black cloak looking at three spilled cups, with two still standing behind them. You can read that before you know a single formal meaning. The picture is doing the teaching.

For a first deck this is not a stylistic preference, it is the difference between learning by looking and learning by memorising. Rider-Waite-Smith and the enormous number of decks derived from it all have illustrated pips. Marseille-style decks do not.

Did you know? The illustrated pips most people think of as "traditional tarot" were drawn by Pamela Colman Smith in 1909, for the deck usually credited to A. E. Waite. She was paid a flat fee and no royalties, and for most of the last century the deck was called simply "the Rider-Waite". Her initials are on every card. Many people now call it the Rider-Waite-Smith for that reason.

What else genuinely matters

Card size and stock. Some decks are noticeably larger than a playing card, which looks beautiful and is genuinely hard to shuffle if you have smaller hands. If you plan to shuffle rather than spread and cut, check the dimensions before buying.

Artwork you can look at for a long time. Not artwork you find impressive, artwork you find readable. You will be staring at these images for hours, and a deck whose style you find cold or cluttered will quietly stop getting used.

A deck that matches the guides you will read. Almost every beginner resource in English assumes Rider-Waite-Smith imagery. If your first deck departs heavily from it, you will spend your first months translating between what the book says and what your card shows. That is a real tax on learning, and it is avoidable.

Whether it comes with a decent booklet. Nice if it does, not important. The card meanings on this site cover all 78, and are more use than the little white book in most boxes.

What does not matter

Being "chosen" by a deck. Decks are printed in the tens of thousands. The one that catches your eye caught it because of design and marketing, both of which are real crafts and neither of which is fate.

Whether it was gifted to you. This myth has done more damage than any other piece of tarot folklore. There is no traditional basis for it. We cover where it came from in full.

Price. A £12 mass-market deck and a £70 indie deck read identically. The expensive one may be more beautiful; it will not be more accurate.

Whether it is "beginner-friendly" according to the box. This usually means it has keywords printed on the cards. That sounds helpful and works against you. You end up reading the word instead of the picture, and the keyword becomes a ceiling on your interpretation.

Common myth: "You must be given your first deck." You do not. Buy your own. The origin of this idea is unclear and it is at most a few decades old. It appears nowhere in the historical literature. Waiting for someone to intuit that you want a tarot deck is a good way never to own one.

The main styles, briefly

You do not need to know tarot history to buy a deck, but knowing the three families stops the choice being bewildering.

If you are starting today and are not sure, the answer is the first row. That is not a lack of imagination; it is the option with the largest support structure around it.

How many cards should be in it?

78. A full tarot deck is 78 cards: 22 major arcana and 56 minor arcana, the minors split into four suits of 14 (Ace through Ten, plus Page, Knight, Queen, King).

If a deck has a different number, it is either an oracle deck rather than a tarot deck, or it has taken deliberate liberties. Neither is wrong, but a first deck should be a standard 78 so that every guide you read applies to it. See tarot vs oracle cards for the difference.

The four suits map to elements and areas of life, and the structure is worth understanding early. It makes 78 cards feel like a system rather than a pile.

Once you have it

Three things worth doing in the first week, none of which are rituals:

1. Look at all 78 cards, in order. Majors first, then each suit Ace to King. You are not learning meanings. You are noticing what the deck looks like and where its imagery repeats.
2. Start a daily single card. One card, no question, written down before you interpret it. The daily card is the single most effective learning habit in tarot.
3. Leave the spreads alone for a fortnight. A Celtic Cross with ten cards you cannot yet read is ten times the confusion of one card you can.

If you want a structured route rather than picking things up as you go, Your First Reading walks through it step by step.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best tarot deck for beginners? Any deck with fully illustrated pips, in a size your hands can shuffle, with art you like. Rider-Waite-Smith itself is the safest choice because every beginner guide assumes it, but there are hundreds of derivative decks with the same structure and different art.

Do tarot cards have to be gifted to you? No. It is a modern myth with no historical basis. Buy your own. See our full answer.

How many cards are in a tarot deck? 78, 22 major arcana and 56 minor arcana. A deck with a different count is usually an oracle deck.

Should my first deck have reversals in mind? Reversals are a reading choice, not a deck feature, and you can add or ignore them at any point. Most beginners are better off learning upright meanings first. More on reversals.

Can I use a second-hand deck? Yes. If it feels odd to you, handle it, sort it into order and shuffle it properly. That is what cleansing a deck actually does, and it works on second-hand decks as well as new ones.

Is an app or a physical deck better for learning? Physical, for a first deck. Handling and shuffling are a real part of how the practice settles, and a screen removes them. Digital readings are useful for speed later on.

How long before I can read properly? With a daily card, most people can read a three-card spread with some confidence in two or three months. Fluency across all 78 takes a year or more, and there is no shortcut worth taking.

Do I need more than one deck? No. One deck used for a year will teach you far more than four decks used occasionally. Collecting is a separate and perfectly enjoyable hobby.

Next steps

• Browse all 78 card meanings: the reference you will use most.
• Pull a daily card: the habit that does the actual teaching.
• The Four Suits: the structure that makes 78 cards manageable.
• Tarot vs Oracle Cards: check what you are actually buying.
• How to Shuffle Tarot Cards: without bending your new deck.

A first deck does not need to be meaningful. It needs to be legible, comfortable in your hands, and used often enough to stop being new.