What's your favorite way to get to know your decks?

[Sonnenkind]

On 11/29/2025 at 9:25 AM, Christgal1983 said:

My favorite way to know my deck is to do tarot readings with it and familiarize myself with its images.

When I look at the images, I try to infer what they may tell me about my life in general.

As I perform more tarot readings with my deck, I know it better.

 

This is a pretty good summary of what I do as well. 

[Pruvia]

My unusual ways of getting to know a new deck 🤭❤️:

• Selecting o elaborating a playlist with it's "vibe", and listening to it while reading the cards.

• Doing a moodboard that represents that deck.

• Doing unusual combos with other tarots and oracles. This has lead me to incredible pairings.

• Try to get to know it's personality through readings. Some decks are more direct, some are simbolic, quiet, reflexive, tender...and this kind of "attitude" makes some of them more powerful in specific topics. For example mi Thoth Tarot is crazily good for reading complex and turbulent relationships.

• Try different methods of selecting the cards: jumpers, different ways of suffling, the "fan" way, reading the one at the bottom...

• Using them for specific topics: ancestors, dreams, a specific deity...and see what happens.

• Doing mindmaps of each card (perfect for deck studies). Add personal connotations with things from the guidebook, and your own research. I did this with an oracle, and is AMAZING. Fun, interactive and it adds a lot of depth to the deck.

[Morwenna]

I used to occasionally do deck interviews, not necessarily with brand-new decks but often with ones I'd had for some time, and often found them illuminating. I like the one you posted, @Barleywine; I might have to give it a try just because. (And yes, I do feel that decks have personalities, though I don't anthropomorphize them!) But mostly, I just look at the cards over and over and get a feel for how they manage the imagery, sometimes comparing them to other decks and sometimes not, often seeing how the cards in the deck work together, especially if there's a theme. Some decks end up being simply study decks; but others graduate to being reading decks even if only rarely. It can be interesting if the deck is such that the cards tell a progressive story; in that case a reading would have "snapshots" from whatever sequences they were drawn from and the task is to see where that snapshot works in the reading without the rest of the sequence being in play. But now I'm rambling... 

[TinySpark]

I like learning a new deck using an odd cross between solitaire, memory, and free form association.

 

Use 1 new deck + 2 old decks

Choose 1 minor arcana suit for each round. Using Major Arcana for last round

1. Line up each deck as row, ordered Ace to King (cups, wands, swords, pentacles)
2. For each column, quickly rank cards from most to least favorite (top to bottom)

Tarot Solitaire

1. Keep top most row for each suit
   • Line up each suit Ace to King as row
   • For each column, quickly rank cards most to least favorite
   • Then for each row, quickly rank cards most to least favorite (left to right)
   • Read intuitively for card meanings
     • Note: I've found that focusing on clusters of suits and/or numbers helps me to touch base with how I'm feeling and/or if I'm struggling
2. Repeat method above using Major Arcana

Tarot Memory

1. Take top most rows for each suit.
2. Shuffle mixed deck, lay out each card face down
3. Flip over 2 cards
4. Read intuitively using simple 2 card spread
5. Set aside 2 cards.
6. Repeat until all cards have been flipped over
7. Repeat using Major Arcana