Lesson 2 of 10 · 6 min
The 78 cards: how the deck is built
Learn the deck's repeating structure so each card has a place before you learn its meaning.
A deck you can sort
Seventy-eight cards can feel like a lot when every picture is unfamiliar. Start by sorting them. The deck has two main groups, and most of its cards follow a repeating pattern. Once you recognize that pattern, a new card comes with clues you already understand.
A standard Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck contains 22 Major Arcana and 56 Minor Arcana. The Minor Arcana divide into four suits of 14 cards each. Each suit contains Ace through Ten, followed by Page, Knight, Queen, and King.
| Part of the deck | What it contains | Total |
|---|---|---|
| Major Arcana | The Fool and 21 other individually titled cards | 22 |
| Wands | Ace through Ten, Page, Knight, Queen, King | 14 |
| Cups | Ace through Ten, Page, Knight, Queen, King | 14 |
| Swords | Ace through Ten, Page, Knight, Queen, King | 14 |
| Pentacles | Ace through Ten, Page, Knight, Queen, King | 14 |
| Whole deck | 22 + (4 × 14) | 78 |
The word arcana means secrets or mysteries. You will often see Major and Minor used as convenient short names for these two groups. For now, focus on recognizing which group a card belongs to.
Recognizing the Major Arcana
The Major Arcana have individual titles such as The Magician, Strength, and The Star. They have no suit. In the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, The Fool is numbered 0 and the other Major Arcana run from I through XXI. Those are Roman numerals for 1 through 21.
The Star, numbered XVII, belongs to this group. Its picture shows a kneeling figure pouring water from two vessels, with stars overhead. Water appears in the scene, but the card's title and place in the deck identify it as a Major Arcana card.
Readers often use the Majors to explore broad themes such as hope, change, responsibility, or uncertainty. The Star can open a conversation about renewal and trust. A Major may help you name a larger concern within an ordinary situation.
The word “Major” describes a category within the deck. Every card deserves attention in a reading, and the question determines which details matter. A small practical choice can be as significant to you as a broad theme.
In Lesson 3, The Major Arcana, you will meet these 22 cards as a group. Today, recognizing their titles and lack of a suit is enough.
The four suits of the Minor Arcana
The Minor Arcana repeat the same ranks across Wands, Cups, Swords, and Pentacles. The suits give you an initial sense of the area of experience a card may address.
| Suit | Object to recognize | Common areas of reflection |
|---|---|---|
| Wands | Staffs or branches, often with leaves | Initiative, desire, creativity, effort |
| Cups | Drinking vessels | Feelings, relationships, connection |
| Swords | Bladed weapons | Thought, communication, conflict, decisions |
| Pentacles | Disks bearing five-pointed stars | Work, resources, the body, everyday needs |
These associations overlap in real life. A work question can involve Cups because you care about your colleagues. A relationship question can involve Pentacles because shared expenses or household tasks need attention.
Begin by identifying the suit's object. Then consider how that suit's themes could relate to your question. This gives you a starting point while you learn each card's particular meaning.
Your deck may use names such as Coins for Pentacles or Batons for Wands. Consult its guidebook to confirm the correspondence. This course uses the Rider-Waite-Smith names. We will examine the suits and their elemental associations in Lesson 4.
Numbered cards and court cards
Within each suit, the Ace counts as the first of ten numbered cards. You may also hear these called pip cards. Each rank occurs four times across the deck, once in each suit. There are four Aces, four Twos, and so on through the four Tens.
The Three of Cups is a numbered Minor Arcana card. Its title gives you both its rank and its suit. In the picture, three figures raise cups together. You can begin with the visible group and the suit's connection to relationships, then learn the card's more specific associations with friendship and celebration.
Each suit also has four court cards, giving the deck 16 courts altogether. Their ranks are Page, Knight, Queen, and King. The Page of Wands and Queen of Cups both belong here.
Courts can help you explore a person, a role, or a way of approaching a situation. The Page of Wands can suggest an eager, exploratory approach to a new interest. The Queen of Cups can suggest emotional attentiveness. You will develop these ideas in Lesson 6, The court cards.
For identification, read the title carefully. A person in a picture does not automatically make the card a court. The Three of Cups has people in its scene and still belongs among the numbered cards. Court membership comes from the named rank.
Practice finding each card's place
Use a simple sequence whenever you meet an unfamiliar card. Read its title, decide whether it has a suit, and identify its rank if it does. Then look closely at the picture. This sequence gives your observations a place in the deck's structure.
You now have a way to locate any standard card within the whole deck. Keep that structure nearby as you continue to the Major Arcana. Individual meanings will have a familiar framework to grow into.