Typically I will find a yearly deck over-view someone on TarotTube posts and I’ll follow along for fun. But this holiday break, I felt compelled to make my own list of what I thought were some of the best decks I used this year. Note: these weren’t all decks published this year, some were from 2024 or even earlier, they are just the decks that I used and was impressed with! Some of my years “best” were return favorites that shined in new way. Let me share:

1. Deck That Stole My Heart: The Lighthouse in Fog

This very quirky deck, which I believe is from a Taiwanese artist(s?) and encompasses five different styles (one for each suit and one for the majors) was a complete spur of the moment purchase for me and I’ve been absolutely obsessed with it since. It’s an odd shape, and odd texture, the images while RWS are incredibly unique and it feels like the whole deck paints a story I wish I knew more about. If any of y’all know more about the origins of this deck, please share! The images are incredibly thought provoking and this deck has such a adventurous and completely unpredictable personality that it’s impossible to ever have a boring draw.

2. Best Deck for Inner Child Work: Forest Spirit Imprint

If you follow my monthly draws you’ll know I waxed on and on about this sweet deck early in 2025, the Forest Spirit Imprints. Colorful and innocent yet not without its scenes of struggles, really made me tap into some of those moments of make-believe and wonder I had as a little girl. Reminiscent of Arrietty the Borrower, this deck where our MC is a small person exploring the vast world feels so on point for how a great Tarot deck ought to make a querant feel. I’m not a person who seeks out “cute” decks, but this year really delivered, and this deck in particular I feel accomplished the security a deck requires when working on the inner child but also does not feel overly saccharine nor completely neutered of darker themes. If I ever find myself reading for a younger querant, I’d likely pick this deck.

3. The Dark Horse Deck: The Exile Tarots

It took me nearly a year before I picked up and used in earnest the Exile Tarots, Silent and Awaken. At first blush they did not seem to come close to the artist’s other deck I am a huge fan of (the Monsoon Tarot), but once I started using these decks side-by-side, something really clicked into place. These decks use nearly the same artwork for each card except there are slight yet profound changes in the images that have a tendency to completely rewrite the card’s narrative, all while sticking true to the RWS. These decks (especially the Silent) are not afraid to go really dark. It seems all the more shocking when the characters appear to be very cute and soft. While one could use these decks separately, I find when I want to use them I combine them and see what happens. It’s a very different way for me to think of Tarot.

4. Best Interpretation of the RWS: Animal & Food Tarot Card

This deck IS totally saccharine sweet and it’s perfect for it’s content! Every time I draw a card from this deck I’m so impressed how the artist really understands the RWS and can make such a wonderfully complex deck about animal confectioners, patissiers, and chocolatiers. Delightful and always bringing a smile, this deck is clever, tongue-in-cheek, and so gosh darn cute, it is the only deck I’ve purchased as a gift for a family member. This is one of those decks that arguably does the RWS better than the RWS. Burn me at the stake.

5. Most Anticipated: The Children of Ostara

It took me a very long time to warm up to Xia Hunt’s Children of Litha, but I’d been waiting and waiting for her follow up deck Ostara to arrive from the Kickstarter campaign! My Tarot friend was so kind to let me use her copy that came earlier and I really clicked with the botanical witchy deck! Colorful, vibrant and an excellent, well thought out card narrative, this is a deck that I will certainly find something new each time I use it. The Kickstarter campaign reward options were just out of this world, and it was worth the wait. It is a deck I cannot wait for spring to break out again! I might need to cheat and give myself a little floral dopamine hit this winter.

6. Unexpected Acquisition: The Tarot of the Silicon Dawn

In the TarotTube people say they have “Unicorn Decks” or a deck that they feel is like a unicorn—rare, difficult to get, beautiful, magical. The Silicon Dawn is one of my “Unicorn” decks. It is so strange and evasive to me that even though I’ve used it as a monthly deck, I think it’s going to need a whole month in the future dedicated to deep diving it as it feels like there is much I can learn from this deck. But in the mean while, I can admire it for it’s strangeness and beauty.

7. Old Standby: The Tarot of the Golden Wheel

It’s funny how older decks return to you in new ways. I kept finding myself reaching for the Golden Wheel this year, a deck that is much beloved but not necessarily a deck I’d consider myself particularly familiar with. This year I gave away my only copy of an actual RWS deck seeing as I never used it and was no longer using it as a reference, but I found myself in the exploration of Thoth and Marseille looking for a comparison deck and while the Golden Wheel isn’t a RWS clone by any means, I really felt drawn to how it portrays the cards. In a monthly deck it provided some key cards that really captured my emotions in the moment (ah-hem, the Six of Swords). AND now that I have a new Tarot student in my life, I find myself taking this deck out a lot for them as a reference deck. It’s fun to use it to teach!

8. The One that Came Back: Slavic Legends Tarot

I’m not typically a Tarot collector that likes to have multiple copies of a deck. However, there are a few notable exceptions; when the different copies are drastically different, or in an odd instance when I have a truly collectors deck and I want a separate one that I can abuse. The latter is the case I found with the gorgeous Slavic Legends. I really wanted an easily shuffle-able, more manageable sized variation to bring around with me and share with others. So when my friend told me she was ordering from Taroteca Studios, I happily jumped on to that ship to combine shipping cost. In a way, this deck allowed me to rediscover the greatness that it the Slavic Legends because now its more accessible to my daily use.

9. The Teaching Deck: Terra Volatile

Most years when thinking about Tarot and the work I did with the cards, I typically think back on the deck that taught me the most in that year. Without question, that deck this year is the absolutely massive Terra Volatile, and its humongous companion book. I have not felt so small and lost in the sauce of Tarot since I first started getting serious about learning it ten years ago. It has been an elation each time I pull a card because I know that the images are going to show me something I have not yet seen, and the corresponding written companion text will deliver for every card. This book, which I’m slowly making my way through, may be the third BIG tarot companion book that I read cover to cover.

10: The Eerily Accurate Reader: The Whisper of the Stars and Garden

I’d say, about once a year, maybe less, I stumble upon a deck that just delivers a scary accurate reading every time I do a draw, and it doesn’t matter the subject or the querant. It gets to be just uncanny after 20 or so draws with the deck, that one starts to develop a suspicion when one takes it out. Some times the deck is beautiful, and, well, sometimes its rather humble. I can never tell when such a deck comes into my life until I pick it up and use it. This deck is down right gorgeous and has been completely on point every time that its hard to put it on the shelf to work with others.

How about you, dear reader? What decks really amazed you this year in 2025?