Choosing a deck: Rider-Waite, Marseille and illustrated decks
decks
The practical differences between the three most common styles, which makes learning easier and what to look at before buying your first one.
The difference that most affects learning isn't the artistic style, it's whether the Minor Arcana are illustrated with scenes or not. In decks in the Rider-Waite tradition, the Five of Pentacles shows two figures in the snow passing a stained-glass window. In Marseille style decks, that same five is a pattern of five coins with floral motifs. The first gives you material to read even if you remember nothing, the second forces you to lean on number and suit.
For beginners, that tips the balance towards an illustrated deck. Not because Marseille is worse, but because the curve is longer: it is read through numerical structure and combinations, and that is far more enjoyable once you have the basics. Plenty of people come to Marseille after a couple of years with another deck and find it cleaner and more precise then.
The third group is author decks, with their own imagery: botanical, cats, Norse mythology, whatever. The good ones keep the seventy-eight card structure and recognisable correspondences, so everything you learn still applies. Ones that rename the suits and reorder the Arcana can be beautiful, but they make it harder to follow any text or guide written for the standard structure.
Before buying, there are three physical things that matter and don't show up in photos. Size: many decks are hard to shuffle with small hands, and reduced editions exist. The finish: a glossy lamination slips at first and becomes comfortable with use. And the back: if it isn't symmetrical, you will know whether a card is reversed before turning it, which ruins practising with reversals.
If an image persistently puts you off, that deck isn't for you no matter how recommended it is. You are going to spend hours looking at those pictures, and visual aversion gets in the way the whole time.
You don't need several. One deck worked with for a year gives you more than five brand new ones, because the personal nuance of each card is built through repetition on the same images.