Rider-Waite-Smith, Marseille and Thoth: what differs in practice
Decks2 min read
How the three main deck families draw their minor cards, and which one makes learning easier in the first few months.
Most decks on sale are descendants of one of three, and the difference that matters day to day is what happens on the 56 minor cards. Rider-Waite-Smith style decks illustrate all of them with a small scene. Marseille style decks draw the minors as arrangements of suit symbols, five cups, eight coins, with no figures. Thoth style decks sit between the two, with patterned minors carrying titles and astrological attributions printed on the card.
For a beginner, the illustrated minors do real work. If the Five of Cups shows you a cloaked figure ignoring two upright cups, you can describe what you see and get somewhere without knowing anything about the number five. Faced with five painted cups in a symmetrical pattern, you either know what fives and cups mean together or you are stuck. That is not an argument against Marseille decks, it is an argument about sequence.
The Thoth deck brings its own vocabulary. The minors are named, the Six of Swords is Science, the Nine of Wands is Strength, and the major arcana are renumbered and renamed in places, with Adjustment for Justice and Lust for Strength. Anything you read about tarot generally will need translating. Readers who like it tend to like exactly that, the fact that the deck asks you to learn its own system rather than a set of scenes.
Marseille reading has a quality worth knowing about even if you do not start there. With no scene to describe, readers lean on number, suit and the direction figures face in the trumps, and they often read cards in pairs or lines rather than as ten separate stories. People who move to a Marseille deck after two years of illustrated minors usually report that their readings got tighter, because the deck stopped offering them a picture to free-associate with.
Redraws and clones complicate the shelf. A great many modern decks are Rider-Waite-Smith in structure with new artwork, which means the Eight of Pentacles still shows someone carving coins and any guide written for the original applies. Others keep the names and change the scenes entirely. Before buying, look at the Five of Cups, the Eight of Pentacles and the Ten of Wands, since those three will tell you quickly whether the deck follows the familiar scenes or has invented its own.
The practical recommendation is dull: learn on illustrated minors, then try another family once you can get through a three-card reading without notes. Buying a Marseille deck in week one because it looks more serious is a common and expensive way to stall.