dealbreaker cards in a deck

Anything showing pain being inflicted or torture. And twisted gore. I can deal with classy gore though.
As for nudity, I'm ok with that as long as it doesn't end up being comical (like the penis "plantation" in the Death card for Tarocco Erotico dei Giardini di Priapo ).

One card with too much gore on it and I wont get the deck, does not matter what card. A good artist can get the point across with symbols, do not have to get so graphic.

PAMUYA said:

One card with too much gore on it and I wont get the deck, does not matter what card. A good artist can get the point across with symbols, do not have to get so graphic.

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Agreed. Sometimes silence says much more than a thousand words.

Forensic said:

Don't worry... I'm an American and judgment looks like someone forgot a letter.... Judgement looks correct.

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I'm a second-generation English teacher and the missing "e" according to American spelling rules changes the sound of the "g." If the "g" is alone, you would pronounce it "guh," (JUD-guh-ment?) but the "e" after it softens it to "juh." We want to keep the softer sound, as in the root "judge."

I was surprised that "judgment" turned out to be the older British spelling, locked in amber by American tradition. I was afraid we colonists had screwed up the "correct" spelling. We have a lot of English words that haven't evolved as much as they do in the mother tongue. My favorite is the Black English "aks" for "ask." That is actually the 17th century pronunciation in both England and America. African slaves learned what they heard and kept the older pronunciation. Standard English didn't make the change until almost two centuries later. Neither is wrong.

I just realized that my dealbreaker with the Morgan-Greer deck is The Magician. He reminds me too much of Doug Henning.

I purchased the Night Sun on a whim a while back—totally not my taste in any way, shape or form—but the Strength card was so different and groundbreaking for me, in an Apocalypto kind of way.

Well, I did like the Strength card in this deck, true, but was put off by the misspelling on The High Priestess card (The High Priestness, good lord), and the plastic-y face of The Empress.

The deck was left to its own devices for a few months, but I've since played with it again, and I'm beginning to see its strange charm.

Lilija said:

This is a great thread, I love reading everyone's different takes on decks.

The dealbreaker (and maker, in some cases) is the Strength card. I always actively look for a good Strength card, in fact, I have bought decks based on this one card alone, so I acknowledge that it's one of my requirements.

I didn't realize, till recently, that it is also my dealbreaker. There are some decks, which I like overall, but have a crummy Strength card (Mystic Dreamer, I'm looking at you and your centerfold spread...) and it collects dust. The Sacred Rose kinds wigs me out a little, and some cards are downright ugly, in my opinion, but the Strength card is just great, so I love and use the deck.

The strength of any deck is it's Strength.

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Thank you! I'm glad someone else feels similarly. I bought this deck as an app to be able to preview the cards. I liked a lot of the cards but when I came to that Strength card it was a deal breaker. I was actually just looking at the deck again last night and thinking well, maybe and then the Strength card appears...just no. Centerfold spread is a perfect descriptive.

I don't really like the Hierophant card, so a deck that doesn't have a traditional version of the Hierophant is preferred for me. Unfortunately, I'm rather attached to the Robin Wood deck, because it was my first deck and I'm not about to change to a different deck any time soon. Strangely, I rarely get the Hierophant anymore.

In my Vision Quest deck, the Hierophant is called something else and that actually makes everything a lot better. I think my problem with the Hierophant is also how difficult it is for me to pronounce that word.

Perhaps my deal-breaker with the Hierophant is: don't call it that.

Lerena said:

I think my problem with the Hierophant is also how difficult it is for me to pronounce that word.

-- I had that problem when I was stationed in Sicily. Took me months to get my tongue around "frigorifero" - refrigerator. ;c}

Perhaps my deal-breaker with the Hierophant is: don't call it that.

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-- How about High Priest? Metropolitan? Pope? Reverend? Spirit Guide? The Experimental Tarot by Gunnar Kossatz calls the card Pope and the image is a faceless John Paul II, but in the first rendering he used the Ayatollah Komeini. The keyword on the card is Belief.

The Chariot (but only because of it's astrological association)
The Moon
King of Cups (I've always related it to my husband)
3 of Swords