Witches Tarot

We'll be honest -- we were all prepared not to like this deck. First, it seems an unneeded move for the publisher (Llewellyn) to switch to a new "Witches" tarot when their standby old Witches Tarot (by Ellen Cannon Reed) has stood the test of time to remain relevant. Second, it looked like another pretty-pretty deck filled with the sort of colorful computer-generated illustrations that were engaging when the first wave of such decks, such as those by Ciro Marchetti, hit the market, but now have become rather stale and cliche (although to be fair, Ciro set the bar really high). That said, the deck actually fares pretty well as a usable, even somewhat substantive piece. We're not sure that it really even needs the title Witches Tarot... what is presented here is pretty much a set of updated Waite-Smith imagery. But, hey -- in our opinion, there's nothing wrong with offering another eye-catching variation of the bread-and-butter deck that we all know and love. The accompanying book does a nice job of explaining the cards, then throws in a few Wiccan-themed spreads and a couple of pages on magickal work in order to keep the set somewhat aligned with the title. But we still wish they'd just kept the Reed deck, and then released this one under some other name.