The Decks

Shadow work built into the cards themselves — each card carries both its traditional meaning and a shadow counterpart, so you can’t escape what’s underneath. The dark forest imagery is 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.

Plants as portals to meaning — the symbolism here pulls from herbalism, the turning of seasons, the particular intelligence of things that grow in darkness and reach for light anyway. Sasha Graham is one of the most thoughtful voices in contemporary tarot, and this deck shows why.

It feels like it was written for this exact corner of the world. The first time I used it felt less like a reading and more like a conversation I’d been meaning to have.

Medieval court imagery, borderless cards, rich jewel tones — it’s a sensory experience before you’ve even drawn a card. Rider-Waite-Smith based, so the symbolism is familiar, but the artwork transforms every reading into something that feels considered and unhurried.

This is the deck that lives on display as much as it gets used. Ciro Marchetti has a way of making the traditional feel entirely new.

Seventy-eight cards illustrated with cats doing very cat things in perfectly observed tarot positions. Surprisingly readable, genuinely charming, and at under a tenner it is the least intimidating entry point possible.

Not every reading needs to be a ritual. Sometimes you just want to shuffle something beautiful and let the cards surprise you.

Gold-bordered classic design, 91-page guidebook, 78 cards with a vintage aesthetic that manages to feel timeless rather than dated. Highly rated because it does exactly what it promises: it teaches you tarot without getting in the way.

I still reach for this one when I want a reading without ceremony. The cards are honest in a way that is harder to achieve than it looks.