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Here's a little housekeeping as we're heading into 2023: an accounting of all the decks I brought in 2022. Definitely didn't “win” at the no/low-buy part of depth year, but I still think 8 (waiting on the 9th) is a very decent number, compared to some previous years. It's less than one a month! Impressive restraint, for a special interest.

Official depth year decks:

• Playful Heart (Q1 deck) – first indie in a long while. Turns out I very much don't like the linen finish. And the fact that the illustrations are not as vibrant as the backs, with a predominance of greyish blues.
• Erotic Tarot (Q2 deck) – impulse bought at a store after chilling in my amazon wishlist for a bit. Love the paper feel. Icky about its take on inclusivity (very femme leaning.)
• Kawaii Tarot – the new blue version (anniversary gift). So frickin' cute! I haven't spent as much time with it as I'd like yet. But big heart-eyes.
• Tarot of the Drowning World (Q3 deck/birthday gift) – another indie! Most expensive tarot purchase, what with shipping from the US. Again – unfortunate with the linen finish, the images would look really good with a smooth gloss. Also I feel its rich chaotic images almost defeat the purpose of a pip deck? Like I'd have to read it despite the art, not in tandem with it.
• Tarot for All Ages (early Q4 deck) – quite like its simplicity and iconic imagery, but had to fudge with the colors for a bit more vibrancy.

Post-depth year (so basically in December):

• Lioness Oracle Tarot – this is my “poor man's Ritual Tarot”. Just kidding, but it has a similar collage look, if a bit more sparse. The Ritual looks very ancient-earthy, from what I've seen online. The Lioness looks very ancient-cosmic. I'll post more about it in its own post.
• Piatnik Tarot de Marseille – why buy a historic restoration when there's this guy? (I mean I still probably will at some point...) So pretty, and no nasty cardstock surprises. Sleek and shuffle-able.
• Enchanted Tarot (Christmas gift, opened but not thoroughly examined). First impressions: huge and flimsy, a trim might be in order. But the images are gorgeous from my first quick glance.
• Fyodor Pavlov tarot (Christmas gift, still in transit). I've been a fan of his artwork from the Hannibal fandom days. Looking forward to a trans man's take on an inclusive deck!

Ironically I didn't go particularly deep with most of those decks. I gave the indies an honest shot, but otherwise tried to go deeper with stuff I already owned and hadn't yet connected with too well. Wanting to make sure that the lack of connection wasn't due to my lack of trying. I have another general yearly retrospective post in the works, so I'll write about my most used decks there.

Final musings: I've already written about what I've learned about purchasing tarot decks this year, but to summarize:

• indie decks aren't automatically better,
• limiting myself to fewer purchases makes me more keen to make expensive purchases, which does not necessarily guarantee getting more “worth”. Also emotions run higher, making it unnecessarily high stakes,
• some decks are simply gimmicky and won't read well as a tarot deck. They might read better as an oracle, but I'm not too good with oracles so can't really tell,
• sometimes it's not an itch for a new deck, it's an itch for something new, and a generic mass market deck seems perfectly harmless in that sense,
• there's more pleasure in using decks than there is in buying them,
• I personally can't commit to using one or even a small selection of decks exclusively for a given period.

I've done a lot of re-shuffling of which decks are sitting out within reach, and which live in a box in storage. I wonder if after a whole year of having done that I'll finally be able to put away the decks that truly aren't working for me. There's always a little doubt of “maybe if I tried a little harder”, but it's distracting me from the decks I actually want to use, and not just out of disappointment/a sense of wastefulness. Fingers crossed for a more positive approach in 2023.