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Ask any tarot reader which are the worst tarot cards to pull and they’ll tell you: some cards have a reputation. I’ve seen it time and time again. A client pulls the Tower, Death or the Ten of Swords, and their face drops. Oh no, that’s a bad one, isn’t it? They brace for impact, expecting disaster, and the question always follows: what is the worst tarot card to draw?
Tarot doesn’t deal in good and bad. The cards don’t exist to curse you or confirm your worst fears. Some hit harder than others, sure, but which one hits hardest is personal. When a room of readers at Simply Tarot Circle, my weekly group where we look at the cards together live online, put their own worst cards on trial, they mostly brought different ones. I think a lot of the time we’re uncomfortable with a card because it resonates with something we’re uncomfortable with in ourselves, but that’s not true for everyone.
So let’s talk about the so-called bad cards, the ones that make people wince, hesitate or joke about quitting the reading altogether, from the Devil and the Five of Pentacles to the Three of Swords.
Are There Really ‘Bad’ Tarot Cards?
A lot of people assume certain cards are bad because of the way they feel when they appear in a reading, and if you’re going through a tough time, the Ten of Swords can feel brutal. But tarot doesn’t sugarcoat things, and if you’re avoiding something, the cards will call you out on it. They don’t dictate what happens. They reflect what is happening and invite you to engage with it.
Pop culture has done a fantastic job of making tarot look terrifying. Films love a scene where someone turns over a card and disaster follows, and the cards with the scariest names and pictures have carried that reputation ever since.
No one wants to hear that a relationship is falling apart, that they’re carrying too much stress, or that they need to face a hard truth. Certain cards feel like the worst because they highlight things we’d rather ignore, and ignoring something doesn’t make it go away. If anything, it makes it worse. If you’re pulling cards like this and not sure what they’re asking of you, a reading can help you unpack it properly.
The 10 Worst Tarot Cards Explained
The Tower
People often ask, is the Tower the worst tarot card? And honestly, it’s easy to see why. Lightning hits the top of the tower, the crown comes off and two people fall. It’s shit hitting the fan, the rug being pulled from under your feet: sudden, unavoidable change that turns everything upside down whether you’re ready or not. And it’s not only weak foundations that crumble. Even the strongest structures can fall when something hits them hard enough.
Think about Covid. Businesses with solid foundations collapsed overnight, not because they were weak, but because the world changed in a way no one could control.
It’s one of my favourite cards, in a weird way, and one of the most misunderstood. You can’t stop the lightning, and you can’t stop things falling apart. What you can change is how you deal with it. If a tidal wave’s coming at you, you’re not stopping it, so ride it and hope you land on your feet.
Death
Of all the cards people fear, Death is probably the one that scares people most, at least people who don’t understand it. Blame Hollywood. Whenever someone in a film pulls this card, disaster is right around the corner. In a reading, it’s very rarely about literal death. For me it’s renewal: things end, and that ending makes room for something new.
People struggle with Death because letting go is hard. Even when we know something isn’t working, we cling to it because it’s familiar, whether that’s a relationship, a job or a version of yourself you’ve outgrown. But birth, death, decay and rebirth are baked into everything. We’re made of stars that exploded, and our bodies are built from dead things we’ve eaten. When we try to get in the way of that cycle, we cause ourselves more suffering, so let it happen, even when it’s painful.
The Devil
The Devil gets a bad reputation because it’s all about control, addiction and toxic cycles. It’s severely fucking misunderstood. It means something’s got a hold on you: an addiction, a manipulative person, a habit you can’t shake, a way of thinking that keeps you stuck. There’s a comfort in that kind of control, even when it’s doing you harm.
Look at the chains around the two figures’ necks, though. They’re loose enough to lift off.
The Hierophant
Plenty of readers groan at the Hierophant, especially when they’re feeling rebellious or resistant to authority. Tarot teaches you to back your own gut, and here’s a card about authority and tradition, drawn as a figure in religious robes with two people kneeling in front. For a lot of people that’s church. I nearly became a vicar about ten years ago, so I’ve been at both ends of this, and I think a lot of what people dislike about the card is their history with religion pinned onto it.
Look at the bottom of the card and it’s two crossed keys and two people there to learn. It’s knowledge being passed from one person to the next. That can be a librarian with the keys to a building full of books, somebody a couple of steps ahead of you, or a video on your phone. Not everything that came before us is wrong.
The Three of Swords
No one wants to see the Three of Swords in a reading. It’s heartbreak and pain, the last thing you want when you’re hoping for good news. And yet it’s one of the most honest cards in the deck. It doesn’t pretend everything’s fine.
Swords are thoughts, and for me this is a card about intellectualising your emotions instead of feeling them. When we overthink heartbreak and try to understand the pain instead of letting ourselves feel it, we make it worse. A lot of the time, what it’s telling you is to stop fucking thinking about it and actually feel your feelings. I’ve gone further into that in what tarot card indicates the end of a relationship.
It was the first card on trial at Simply Tarot Circle, brought by somebody who couldn’t find a single thing to like about it, and it was somebody else in the room who changed their mind: if you stop adding your own story to the hurt and let yourself feel it, the clouds move on. One person’s worst card turned out to be another person’s inspiration.
The Two of Cups Reversed
The Two of Cups reversed is one a lot of people dread in a relationship reading. When it comes up, it usually points to a disconnect. Maybe something’s shifted between you and your partner. Maybe the closeness that was once there just isn’t anymore.
Sometimes that’s the sign you need to step back and ask whether the relationship is actually working. But the Two of Cups reversed doesn’t always mean it’s over. Sometimes it’s just highlighting that emotional distance, and often the way to close it is just spending real time together. And if that sounds unbearable? Well, that might be your answer.
The Five of Pentacles
The Five of Pentacles gets dreaded as the money card. It’s about hardship, whether that’s financial, emotional or physical. It’s the moment where you feel like you’re on your own, like there’s no help coming, and when you’re in that space, it’s easy to believe that’s just how things are.
For me it’s less about not having enough and more about the mindset that nothing will ever be enough. It’s scarcity thinking, telling yourself your life will be great once you’ve got the next thing. Years ago I told myself I’d start a YouTube channel once I’d bought my house. I got the house. Did I start the channel? Did I fuck. There was always another excuse. If you genuinely haven’t got the money, that’s not a mindset problem. But if the thing you can’t do now is still the thing you won’t do once you’ve got the money, the money probably isn’t the reason.
Two people are trudging through the snow, and they’re walking straight past a lit window.
The Nine of Swords
A lot of people would call the Nine of Swords the anxiety card. If you’ve ever had a night where your brain just won’t shut up, where you’re lying awake spiralling over worst-case scenarios, you already know what this card feels like. It’s holy fuck territory. Your mind is not your friend right now, and every worry you’ve got is coming at you at once.
Have a look at the quilt, though, because it’s covered in astrological signs, and I read those two ways. It can be leaning on all of that too much, sitting up all night looking for meaning where maybe there isn’t any, or trying to understand something that isn’t there to be understood. Or it can be the opposite: ignoring the guidance you’re being given, whether that’s people or astrology or anything else trying to warn you, and closing your eyes to all of it so you can work it out on your own.
The Ten of Wands
The Ten of Wands is too much on your fucking plate. Wands are energy and passion, and this is the point where you’ve taken on so much that it’s crushing you, where you’ve hit your limit and can’t keep going like this. The figure’s face is buried in the bundle and the town is still a way off.
Would you rather everything breaks, or would you rather put one thing down and make it to the end?
The Ten of Swords
The Ten of Swords looks brutal: ten swords in the back and someone lying face down. I see it as almost the zero of swords, an ego death. You’ve been so overwhelmed by your thoughts that you finally realise they’re just thoughts. You have thousands of them a day. You get dark, intrusive ones walking across a bridge, and you think weird shit in the car. Those thoughts aren’t you.
Worst Tarot Card Combinations (And What They Actually Mean)
None of these pairs reads the same way every time, because how I read two cards together depends on the cards around them.
The Tower + The Ten of Swords
If you were looking for the worst tarot card combination, this might be it: sudden upheaval and a painful ending, so it can look like everything crashing down at once. I’d read it as something that couldn’t last coming down, and I’d want to know what you’re still trying to hold up.
Death + The Ten of Wands
One card’s about endings and the other’s about carrying more than you can manage. Together I’d read them as release, permission to put something down.
The Devil + The Five of Pentacles
Feeling trapped, next to going without and feeling shut out, can look hopeless. The Devil’s chains are loose, though, and in the Five of Pentacles there’s that lit window.
The Three of Swords + The Nine of Swords
Heartbreak, and then the anxiety that keeps you up at night going over it. The Three asks you to let yourself feel the hurt, and the Nine is the loop you can get stuck in afterwards.
Conclusion: There Is No Worst Tarot Card
If there’s a card you’d take out of your deck given the chance, try saying exactly what you hate about it, then argue the other side. It’s usually one specific thing, like a face, a bandage or the rain, so ask what that thing is doing in the card and what a reading would be missing without it. My free Noticing Tool helps with that bit, because it gets you looking at what’s in a card before you reach for a meaning.
It’s easier with somebody else arguing the other side. Simply Tarot Circle runs every Sunday, live online, as part of Simply Tarot Membership, and your first three are free when you sign up on the Circle page. Or if you’d rather go through your cards with me, you can book a tarot reading.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the unluckiest tarot card?
There isn’t one, because tarot doesn’t deal in luck. The card people point at is the Tower, because it shows sudden change you didn’t ask for. When it comes up, I’d ask what’s already shifting, and how much energy you’re spending holding on to what was.
What is the saddest tarot card?
The Three of Swords, if you go by the picture: a heart with three blades through it. It’s heartbreak, and it’s honest about it. What it asks is that you stop analysing the pain like a puzzle and let yourself feel it.
What are the worst tarot cards in a love reading?
The ones people dread are the Two of Cups reversed, the Three of Swords and the Tower. The Two of Cups reversed points to emotional distance, which sometimes means the relationship is ending and often just means the two of you have stopped spending real time together. They show what’s happening so you can do something about it, which is the whole point of a reading.
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