Review by
Lalia Wilson
The creator of the Tarot Grand Luxe deck, Ciro Marchetti, has created many tarot decks and at least three oracle decks. His art is beautiful. This 2019 deck is available from U.S. Games Systems, Inc. The cards measure 3 X 5 inches, a good size for riffle shuffling. The cards are sturdy with a good feel to them. Their box is well constructed and durable, making it a good permanent home for the cards.
The deck has the standard 78 cards. Strength is number eight and Justice is number 11. The court cards are the standard Page, Knight, Queen, and King. The suits are Coins (Pentacles or Earth), Cups (Water), Swords (Air), and Wands (Fire). The card backs are reversible-friendly. You will see six cards from this deck on the Tarot Scopes page. Here are three more:
The Six of Cups shows a girl on a swing in silhouette. Six cups are found on the card, but more prominent are a rocking horse, a stuffed rabbit, and a Teddy bear, all symbols of an ideal childhood. This card captures the feelings of nostalgia and longing for the times when life was simpler and we were all loved and cared for.
The Eight of Wands shows speed coming right at you! Here the speed of this card is an explosion or a rifle shot coming right at the viewer. This puts the querent on notice that things are moving quickly in the matter of the question and may be too fast to handle.
The Ace of Wands is fiery, incendiary, energized and motivated. What better card to initiate action? Also present is a fiery dragon, another association with the Wands suit.
This deck is reader-friendly. The cards are mostly similar to the Rider-Waite-Smith convention. Those cards which differ are easily self-explanatory. The accompanying 56-page LWB will be helpful to any who are not already familiar with the RWS tarot tradition. The LWB is also notable because of the black & white illustrations of each card and because the creator of this deck shares many of his thoughts about the tarot. Having created a number of tarot decks, plus several oracle decks, Marchetti is a scholar of the tarot, even if just a scholar of the visual aspects of the tarot. This deck is quite lovely. It is for collectors as well as for tarot readers. I recommend this deck.