What is Your Personal Top Ten Tarot?

[fire cat pickles]

I don't think we have a thread like this yet. I thought it would be interesting to have an ongoing, editable, thread to keep tabs of our personal favorites. And also we will be able to see how our favorites compare with others. 

 

This thread should not be confused with other thread that discuss "Top Ten Decks" of such-and-such year, or the "Top Ten of All Time", threads. These are your personal favorites that may be subject to change. If you can, simply edit your original post with your updated favorites and continue the discussion with why, when, how, your deck(s) appeal to you in subsequent posts.

 

This could be a great thread! I'm looking forward to see how our tastes in decks match up 🙂 

 

What is your current personal Top Ten Tarot?

 

(A side note: Oracle Decks may be included, but please have at least a few tarot--this is the Tarot Subforum.)

[fire cat pickles]

My current personal Top Ten Tarot is:

 

1. Fantastic Menagerie
2. Minchiate Solleone (Costantini 1980)
3. Rider-Waite-Smith
4. Celtic Tarot (Davis/Paterson)
5. Flornoy Noblet
6. Williams Minchiate
7. Universal Fantasy
8. Tarot of the Magical Forest
9. Brady Tarot
10. Adrian Tarot
     

Edited August 7, 2024 by fire cat pickles

[Scarlet Woodland]

My top ten has changed twice in the last couple months, after a long, fixed period, thanks to a couple new decks that have blown me away. Here's my new top 10:

 

1   Druidcraft Tarot

2   Mary El Tarot

3   Sasuraibito Tarot

4   All Hallows Tarot

5   Illuminated Tarot (Herzer)

6   The Wandering Star Tarot

7   The Wild Unknown Tarot

8   Tarot Of Vampyres

9   Rosetta Tarot

10   Tarot of the Abyss 

 

Some are deeply nostalgic, some are especially powerful or have incredible guidebooks, others, I simply can't stop reaching for. My number 1 deck, the Druidcraft Tarot, is actually one of the ones I use least on this list, but he's been with me from the beginning of this journey and I'd never be without him. We have a deep and longstanding connection and if I had to go back to just one deck, it'd be that one

 

I'm keeping to all tarot here but if I was including oracles, then Brian Froud's Faeries Oracle  would bump someone and shoot up into the top 5, for sure.

[Misterei]

This is a tough one ... I mean it changes weekly!

I'll give it a try as I'm integrating new decks into my life.

 

The first 5 are my workhorse decks. The ones I use for clients. My Old Faithfuls (and one new faithful)

The last 5 are my tarots du jour. I'm enamoured with them now ... but next week? Who knows?

 

1. Ciro Marchetti's Legacy of the Divine
2. Radiant Wise Spirit (LoScarabeo RWS)
3. RWS centennial mini (US Games)
4. Pam's Vintage mini (indy RWS)
5. Eduordo Dotti (reprint by Valenza)
6. Keymaster Tarot
7. Fernando Crippa (Il Meneghello)
8. Orient Tarot by Daniloff
9. Triunfi Della Luna by Valenza
10. Oswald Wirth (lo Scarabeo)

[euripides]

I like the 'personal' and 'subject to change' because this definitely changes depending on my current obsessions. 

 

1. Forest of Enchantment

2. Gaian

3. Wildwood

4. BOS So Below

5. Spiral (my eternal favorite)

6. Touchstone

7. Druidcraft

8. Housewives

9. Rohrig

10. Fournier Spanish

 

 

 

[DanielJUK]

I've popped this over to the Tarot Decks section 😀

[Nemia]

What is your current personal Top Ten Tarot?

 

Excellent question. 

 

1. Thoth Tarot - forever my number 1, the others in no particular order
2. Tabula Mundi Tarot
3. Silhouette Tarot
4. Abyss Tarot
5. Anna K. Tarot
6. Haindl Tarot
7. Cosmic Tarot
8. Dreaming Way Tarot
9. Golden Botticelli Tarot
10. Stretch Tarot

[akiva]

This is such a fascinating thread 😊 my number 1 hasn't particularly changed but others tend to swap places, so here goes:

 

1. Noblet tarot 

2. Minchiate Fiorentine by Costantini

3. The enochian tarot

4. Lasenikův tarot

5. Tarocco siciliano 

6. Inversion tarot in a tin

7. Rare triumphs by Ian cumpsty

8. Dal negro tarocco indovino 1.96

9. Rws centennial edition 

10. RG tarot cards (some weird english tdm thing)

[gregory]

I find I literally cannot answer this, but I'll TRY: At the moment - in no particular order

1. Pagan Cats
2. Sweet Twilight
3. Khanesha
4. Serpent and the Peacock
5. Slavic Legends
6. de la Rea
7. Drowning World
8. Caro
9. Thoth (how could one not)
10. Dreamkeepers

But those just occurred to me; I will probably change my mind in half an hour...

[fire cat pickles]

@Nemia my number one favorite (Fantastic Menagerie) hasn't changed in a very long time, and I suspect it won't. @akiva we have the same number 2 favorite! I actually had a dream about this deck and I searched for it online. My research led me to AT back in the day. As I move through my collection in the DoW group, my list will probably change, with the exceptions of the Paterson Celtic and the Tarot of the Magical Forest.

 

[akiva]

@fire cat pickles is the solleone the same as the Fiorentine? (Just googled it, that's a stunning edition going for an eye watering price! My edition is a very simple woodcut style) I'm not surprised you were dreaming about it! Did yours come with a sheet of divinatory meanings and game rules? 

Edited January 24, 2023 by akiva

[fire cat pickles]

35 minutes ago, akiva said:

@fire cat pickles is the solleone the same as the Fiorentine? (Just googled it, that's a stunning edition going for an eye watering price! My edition is a very simple woodcut style) I'm not surprised you were dreaming about it! Did yours come with a sheet of divinatory meanings and game rules? 

Solleone is the publisher. "Fiorentine" refers to the Florence skyline on the Fame card:

 

 

Mine is in a little balsam box with a blue booklet and a white booklet. The white booklet has the Rules of the Game in it.

 

A Minchiate with a Fame card with the Florence skyline could be considered a "Fiorentine."

 

[akiva]

@fire cat pickles thank you for clearing that up, my edition doesnt have the fame card it seems but it has Le Trombe and Il Mondo, but has Fiorentino on the box 🤔 I'm not sure if either skyline looks like the image you posted.

[fire cat pickles]

That's the Minchiate le Nuove. I do have the game sheet and dice that comes with it. Mine comes in a big plastic box:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/403476901409

 

"Fiorentino" means "little Florence" so my guess is that Costantini is giving just a bit of a nod at the skyline there.

 

This is Costantini's other Solleone edition, the Fiorentine:

 

https://tarotgarden.com/minchiate-fiorentine/

 

Edited January 24, 2023 by fire cat pickles

[akiva]

Ah I see, well that clears that up! Thank you, I'm going to keep an eye out for the other edition that was listed on tarotgarden, I've been enabled 😁

[Flaxen]

This is surprisingly tricky…my current top ten (in no particular order) are:

1. Thoth

2. Smith-Waite Centennial edition

3. Flornoy Noblet

4. Il Meneghello Soprafino

5. Bohemian Gothic

6. Tabula Mundi

7. Spirit Keeper’s Tarot

8. Deviant Moon

9. Trionfi della Luna

10. Tarot de Marseille-Waite 

[Bodhiseed]

These are in no particular order - it was incredibly hard to winnow them down to ten:

 

PetraK

Tabula Mundi Colored Arcus

Morgan Greer

Tarot de St. Croix

Mary-El

Wheel of Change

Forest of Enchantment 

Hadar Marseille

Tarot of Durer

Light Seers

 

 

 

[Mi-Shell]

For me the first 5 are at the top since many years, then, my more recent discoveries 🙂

 

Greenwood Tarot

Ironwing Tarot

Tarot of the Origin

Soprafino Tarot

Southwest Sacred Tribes

Songs for the Journey Home

Anieth Nature Deck

DruidCraft

Guardian of the Night

Alchemist's Garden

Edited August 6, 2024 by Mi-Shell
19 month later things changed a little :)

[rylla]

Huh! Hard. In no particular order:

 

Jolanda

Deviant Moon

Daniloff

Prague

Fyodor

Astrology of love

Illuminated RWS (C. Herceg)

El Goliath

Crimson Asteria

Roots of Asia

 

If I could include decks that I don't have, the Terracotta, Solara Occulto, Jumbledance and Ritual would be among them as well (I am waiting for the last two ones). 

 

 

[Misterei]

3 hours ago, rylla said:

...

Daniloff

which Daniloff? His first one? I've got his Oriental which I love ... but not his original.

[BradGad]

16 hours ago, Nemia said:

What is your current personal Top Ten Tarot?

 

Excellent question. 

 

1. Thoth Tarot - forever my number 1, the others in no particular order
2. Tabula Mundi Tarot
3. Silhouette Tarot
4. Abyss Tarot
5. Anna K. Tarot
6. Haindl Tarot
7. Cosmic Tarot
8. Dreaming Way Tarot
9. Golden Botticelli Tarot
10. Stretch Tarot

 

You’re lucky, to have a one. That one.

 

It’s like the Marine Corp’s “Rifleman’s Creed”:

 

This is my rifle.

There are many like it.

This one is mine.

 

I am into knives and pocket knives and Swiss Army Knives. For over 45 years, I had one pocket knife. I’ve done the math (average times used per day times years times days in a year), and it’s clear I have used that pocket knife over 80,000 times. Even when I got up into my 50s, it was still a heart-warming story of a boy and his pocket knife. Then, I started collecting others. I have about 50 Swiss Army Knives now, and my daily carry is different than that one. I really like what I am carrying now (that’s why I switched), but something precious was lost in the switch. 

 

Right now, I have *one* deck. I own about a dozen and a half, but I have *one* deck. I am planning to buy more (for reference, for beauty), but I really hope I never lose what I have now, which is what you have: I have *one* deck.

 

I can’t think of a top 10. (I can think of a couple where I think “What was I thinking?”)

[Mi-Shell]

18 hours ago, rylla said:

Huh! Hard. In no particular order:

 

Jolanda

Deviant Moon

Daniloff

Prague

Fyodor

Astrology of love

Illuminated RWS (C. Herceg)

El Goliath

Crimson Asteria

Roots of Asia

 

If I could include decks that I don't have, the Terracotta, Solara Occulto, Jumbledance and Ritual would be among them as well (I am waiting for the last two ones). 

 

 

The Roots of Asia would be my No 11 - if we were going further down the list  :)

[frankie]

What a great thread! My Tarot practice has gone dormant for the last several months, but reading everyone's responses is making me miss my go-to decks. Not quite ten, but here they are:

1JJ Swiss

Victorian Romantic Tarot (I am partial to the first edition because of personal associations with some of the cards that were changed in the subsequent versions)

Thomson Leng Tarot

Thoth

Greenwood Tarot

The Arthurian Tarot

Dark Goddess Tarot

[FindYourSovereignty]

Similar to @gregory, I’m not sure how to reply to this thread because I don’t know that I have a dedicated Top Ten. 🤷🏻‍♀️
 

These are the decks I am working with right now and I am pretty sure they will not be my Top Ten in 3 months, but some of them will carry over to the list.
 

My Top Ten for now, in no particular order:

 

1. The Star Tarot

2. Anna K Tarot

3. Santa Muerte

4. Tarot Cats

5. The Serpent and the Peacock

6. Tarot of Mystical Moments

7. Tarot of Oneness

8. Gaian Tarot

9. Ancestral Path Tarot

10. Little Odd Tarot

[Guest]

My top ten as of now:

 

1. Smith-Waite Borderless Tarot
2. Thoth Tarot
3. Madenié Marseille
4. Minchiate Etruria
5. Sola Busca Tarocchi
6. Sol Invictus: The God Tarot
7. Tarot Didactic 
8. Heaven and Earth Tarot
9. Barbara Walker Tarot
10. Pagan Otherworlds Tarot

 

Have a very few decks lined up later this year that might barge into this list.