Canasta Playing Cards and Canasta Decks
Canasta playing cards and decks are sold, but you don’t need a special “Canasta deck” in order to play the game. Two normal decks of cards with two jokes in each of them are all you need to play Canasta. (You need 4 jokers total in a Canasta game.) That’s a total of 108 cards in a standard Canasta game.
Canasta cards are divided into natural and wild cards. The wild cards are the deuces (twos) and the jokers. The rest of the cards (except the 3’s, which are special) are the natural cards.
Each card in a Canasta deck has a point value based on its rank. Jokers are worth 50 points. Aces and deuces are worth 20 points. The 8’s through Kings (inclusive) are each worth 10 points, and the 4-7 cards are worth 5 points.
Some people use “Canasta cards” or “Canasta deck” to refer to a deck of cards that’s made specifically for use in a Canasta game. The cards are sold in a double deck with all the cards you need to play Canasta, and they’re also labeled with the point values, so you don’t have to remember what each individual card is worth. These Canasta cards and Canasta decks might be pretty handy for a beginner, and they retail for between $10 and $15 a set, so they’re affordable enough.
On the other hand, it’s still probably cheaper to just buy two decks of regular cards and combine them to make your own Canasta deck.