The Minor Arcana of the Tarot deck consist of fifty six cards, which are closely related to the deck of fifty two playing cards used in most modern card games. It comprises four suits, derived from the older Latin playing card suits commonly named on the Rider-Waite-Smith deck Wands, Cups, Swords, and Pentacles, although there are a wide variety of different names and suit symbols used in different decks.

Each suit has 14 cards, being Ace (One), 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Page, Knight, Queen, King. These last four are called the court cards, and often have different names in different decks. One common variation, introduced by the Victorian-era Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (for the Order's tarot deck) and later followed by occultist Aleister Crowley, is to replace the Page and Knight with a Princess and Prince (for more, see Thoth Tarot). There are Italian playing card decks which have a page, maid, knight, mounted lady, king and queen.

Modern decks often have the numbered minor arcana cards (Ace to 10 of each suit) named and numbered, although many resemble early decks in that there are no titles or numbers on those cards. The numbered minor arcana cards usually have the appropriate number of symbols for the suit depicted, and the court cards usually have the corresponding person depicted holding the symbol of their suit.

Modern divination decks, especially if based on the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck (circa 1910), will often have a symbolic scene depicted on the numbered Minors, although this was generally not the case before the Rider-Waite-Smith deck was published. Before this, with only the exception of a handful of decks, the numbered cards of the Minors showed merely a geometric arrangement of the appropriate number of suit symbols.

Wands

Pentacles

Tarot suit	Playing-card suit	Element	Class	Faculty
Wands, Staves, Rods or Batons	Clubs	Fire	Peasantry	Creativity and Energy
Pentacles or Coins	Diamonds	Earth	Merchants	Material body or possessions
Cups or Chalices	Hearts	Water	Clergy	Emotions and Love
Swords	Spades	Air	Nobility and Military	Reason and Will

Cups

Swords