I love a modern Tarot deck, especially so when they combine my love for divination with my love for other aspects of life such as Music, Art, or low and behold Social Media. Deckstiny’s latest deck, the Instarot is a seventy-eight-card, easy-to-read divination deck featuring simple imagery, keywords (aka hashtags), and written guidance on each and every card.
Deckstiny
Deckstiny, formerly named ‘Shuffle Tarot’ is a Thailand-based company that has created countless Tarot and divination decks to suit readers of all ages, stages, and preferences. Deckstiny is a team collaboration of Mate Horonumber, Oomsin Phumphat, Jujiir and a range of other creators, and their decks are available to purchase worldwide via their vastly stocked Etsy store.
All Wrapped Up
Deckstiny once produced divine divination decks packaged in simple, paper-based tuck boxes which were nicely decorated but were far from sturdy. Thankfully, they’ve since updated and upgraded their packaging, ensuring almost all their decks now arrive in sturdy, decorated cardboard boxes featuring thumb slots for easy access. The Instarot however is one better than this as Deckstiny have pulled out all the stops, providing a sturdy, beautifully decorated, colourful, magnetic-clip-to-close box with foiled and sparkly detailing ideal for storage and presentation purposes.
The Cards
Measuring a standard 70 x 120mm, the Instarot is a 78-card-divination deck printed on 350 GSM Arts card stock with matt protection coating, plain edging, and pink-purple stamping on the card backs. With symmetrical, white and purple-foil printed card backs, the Instarot is ideal for upright and reversed readings.
What, No Guidebook?
Though Deckstiny has included the odd guidebook with their decks from time to time, there aren’t many of their publications that have done so. The Instarot Tarot arrives without a guidebook thus beginner readers may wish to consider this.
Additional Art Cards & Certification
Included with the Instarot Tarot are six additional cards: a certification card providing proof of the exact edition of the deck, a title card, a thank you card, a Pamela Colman Smith card (which you may wish to add to your deck or keep separate), and two protective art cards.
Reading & Working With The Instarot
I’ve spent the past couple of weeks reading and working with the Instarot and I’ve got to say – I love it! Although Instagram has changed somewhat over the years, this deck has truly captured the original aesthetic of the social media giant.
Each of the cards features a top bar (much like Instagram once did), an avatar, card titles, base icons, and a description akin to the caption one might add when posting onto the likes of Instagram including keywords disguised as hashtags.
I love that these cards offer newbie readers guidance on the card meanings in their descriptions/ captions. However, I have found that quite a few of the descriptions/ captions are unrelated to the cards and therefore incorrect – this is a real shame as whilst I’d proclaimed my love for this deck in terms of beginner readers being able to use the captions/ descriptions to learn the meanings of the cards, this isn’t always the case.
The Instarot uses bold, bright colours with cartoon-style imagery against a plain white card background (akin to that of a computer/ tablet/ phone/ device screen). Unlike Instagram, where images are cropped and framed to an exact, regular size, the Instarot shows images overlapping the titling and description/ captions in places and I rather like how the imagery is literally bursting from the card.
Scrolling Through The Instarot
I have put together a short walkthrough video further illustrating and explaining the Instarot.
Purchasing & Pricing Information
The Instarot is available to purchase directly via Deckstiny’s Etsy page for £67.76. However, it is worth noting that shipping prices to the UK are a further £31.91 and therefore it may be worth browsing through Deckstiny’s other divination decks to create a bulk order to save on postage and packaging.
To Summarise
This bright, bold, modern, social-media-based Tarot deck is ideal for readers of all ages and abilities. The Instarot offers a huge slice of nostalgia for those of us who watched as Instagram was first launched and who have used social media as it has developed over time.
With luxurious cards offering keywords and guidance, this is a deck with a difference which is super smooth to shuffle and gives a firm nod to the past two decades.
For further information on the Instarot or alternative Deckstiny publications visit www.etsy.com/uk/market/deckstiny
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Product Rating
Disclosure: I was sent the above product for the purpose of this post however all opinions are my own.