This review is ridiculously long overdue. I got my first tarot deck last year from this website for quite a hefty price. Honestly, the Llewellyn deck was not my first choice. I am more drawn to decks that are not traditional in their design but since they were in stock and at the time I didn't have the knowledge that I have now (that Kinokuniya is tarot deck heaven for Malaysians).
Here are other places you can go to for tarot decks.
Note: My posts contain affiliate links that give me a small commission when you click them at no extra expense to you. They will just redirect you to the product pages :)
Now, I was worried about making this post since I read somewhere that Llewellyn doesn't allow the images of their decks (particularly this one) to be posted around the internet. So, if I ever do get emailed about this, I will take the images down but anyone can still contact me here if you want to see the pictures. But since I still see images of cards from this deck online, I'll post it anyway.
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Information
The Llewellyn Tarot deck was created by Anna-Marie Ferguson and was published by Llewellyn in 2006. The tarot deck consists of the standard 78 cards (22 major arcana and 56 minor arcana). The Llewellyn deck is created in the traditional Rider-Waite style and this can be consistently seen throughout the deck say for a few minor differences. As the deck was created in the standard Rider-Waite style, the minor arcana consists of the traditional suits (Cups, Swords, Wands, and Pentacles) and court cards (Page, Knight, Queen, King).
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The Cards
As mentioned above, the artwork of the Llewellyn deck has a similarity to the traditional Rider-Waite system. However, some of the depictions are different.
Here are some of my favourite cards from the Major and Minor Arcana.
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| The Aces from each suit. |
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| Swords |
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| Pentacles |
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| Cups |
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| Wands |
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Art, Design & Quality
While has its own unique art style, you can clearly see similar characteristic from the original RW cards. Some aspects of the original RW deck are changed and there are also cards that are named differently such as the Devil card, which is called The Horned One in this deck and the World Card, which is called the Universe.
Quality wise, the cards are kind of thin but they're thicker than your cheap playing cards. They're thinner than the Zombie Tarot deck and the Wild Unknown deck.
However, since the cards were packed tightly in plastic, they were slightly stuck together which made some of the edges tear like in the picture. If you're more patient than me, separate them slowly so that tearing doesn't happen.
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Readings
I spent a week with this deck again recently so I can refresh my memory. I haven't worked with this particular deck as often as I should but it has definitely served me well. Except for that one time when I just got my
Tarot del Fuego deck. lol I think it was sulking.
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Price
(+Free Delivery Worldwide)
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Final Thoughts
While I do love the Llewellyn deck since it is my first tarot deck but I rarely ever reach for it because of the art, Plus, the little tears on the back of some of the cards make it easy for me to identify the cards which can affect the cards I draw. The cards are also a little too wide for my short fingers to shuffle comfortably.
Would I purchase this deck again? As a beginner, I would because the cards still have aspects of the original RW card so you can learn and identify the cards faster once you move on to other decks.
