Best Decks of 2018

[Joan Marie]

I've seen a couple of "Best Decks of 2018" lists and I thought I'd share them here.

First there is Benebel Wen's Top 5 List

Click the link to see the decks and read her reasons for choosing them (and also her full reviews) but I'll put Benebel's list here:

• AlcheMystic Woodcut Tarot by D. W. Prudence

• Luminous Void Tarot by Laura Zuspan

• Luna Sol Tarot by Mike Medaglia

• Spirit Within Tarot by Steven Bright

• Venetian Tarot by Eugene Vinitski

I need to get those added to our List of Decks here!

Also Ben Noble and Brian Dooley, the Amateur Tarot Podcast guys, had an interesting competition this year at their website. Ben created brackets, much like you see in sports championships, of all the decks (about 100) that they used on their show over the year. They asked listeners to pick winners in each bracket finally narrowing it down to the winner. The Daniloff Tarot & The Sasuraibito Tarotwere the last two finalists and the winner is: The Sasuraibito Tarot

You can see how the whole competition panned out, bracket for bracket, at the Amateur Tarot Podcast website. It's a really interesting thing that Ben set up over there.

Has anyone else seen any "Best Of the Year" deck lists? Or do you have any favourites from the year?

[Tarot_scholar]

Benebell couldn't nominate her own deck but I can!

That said, I'm the wrong person to participate in this kind of discussion. I don't keep up with Tarot news and I tend to acquire decks very slowly and thoughtfully and years after the fact. That Sasuraibito Tarot is lovely, though. I think it might make a lovely gift for someone I know.

[Amoroso]

There are the 2018 Tarot awards from the Tarosophy Tarot Association, the American Tarot Association, and the International Tarot Foundation.

[Joan Marie]

There are the 2018 Tarot awards from the Tarosophy Tarot Association, the American Tarot Association, and the International Tarot Foundation.

It seems that all 3 of those links are for best decks of 2017, unless I missed something which is entirely possible.

(the 3rd one is kind of misleading because it is the 2018 Carta Awards, but when you look it's awarding the best of 2017, they just do it in 2018.)

[Amoroso]

I was thinking that since the Amateur Podcast Guys included decks that were published before 2018 and Benebell included the Spirit Within and the Venetian which were 2017 releases, I should try to include these too. The awards in those 3 links were performed in 2018 or late 2017 AFAIK, but the decks they deliberated on were published in 2017, as you said. They are the latest iterations of their respective awards.

Last year I was more focused on decks that were perennially popular so I didn't acquire many 2018 decks. I worked with the Thoth the most, followed by the Centennial. Aside from these classics, I guess my personal best decks for 2018 would be the Walker, Mary-El, Klimt, Sola Busca, Shadows, Renaissance, and Sol Invictus, mainly because I read with them a lot and loved doing so.

[Joan Marie]

I was thinking that since the Amateur Podcast Guys included decks that were published before 2018 and Benebell included the Spirit Within and the Venetian which were 2017 releases, I should try to include these too. The awards in those 3 links were performed in 2018 or late 2017 AFAIK, but the decks they deliberated on were published in 2017, as you said. They are the latest iterations of their respective awards.

That makes sense.

The Amateur Podcast guys were evaluating 100 decks they used on their show in 2018. So that's a different spin on the "Best of" concept.

And technically, wouldn't it be great to have a "Best Historical Deck" released in 2018 or other similar categories? It doesn't seem fair to compare a 15th Century deck with a modern one. There is a lot of wiggle-room in the accuracy of any of these lists. It would be great to see one next year that really did reflect work released in the calendar year and divided into categories but I don't think anyone has quite worked that out yet. Not that I am aware of.