There is a big misunderstanding that Anki and similar spaced repetition systems (SRS) can help you memorize things. It cannot. And this is why many people give up on using it.
The purpose of SRS is to keep you from forgetting things you have already learned and memorized.
If you are going to start using Anki I highly recommend this foundational document written by the person who initially brought SRS into the digital realm.
The purpose of SRS is to tickle your existing memory of something right before you are about to forget it. In theory, if this happens at the right moment, you can wait longer the next time before the tickle. But if you have never understood/learned/memorized something, then this system will not work.
You cannot learn Pali from an Anki deck. And you won’t even memorize things. At first it seems like you can. However one or two months in that second or third spaced out tickle is going to start failing, and failing hard.
Once you know this, it becomes more clear why someone else’s pre-made Anki decks will likely lead to failure. Unless you learn/understand/memorize the words before you start using them. This is why most people who succeed with SRS will tell you to skip the premade decks and create cards as you learn/understand/memorize things.
Where pre-made decks are useful is if you are working with, say, a text book and someone makes a deck for that. In this case your learning and the deck are both aligned in theory. Also, sophisticated decks that use images or recordings are difficult to make, so if you can find one that aligns with what you are learning then that can save a lot of time.
Of course if you are committed to using the pre-made deck to structure your learning, meaning that before you add a new card you make sure you fully understand the word (or fact or whatever) and then you learn it and memorize it before you add it into your pile, then you should be ok. But simply seeing the word for the first time in the deck and expecting to have Anki magically keep it in your brain isn’t going to work.
If you don’t believe me, that’s fine. But two or three months in when you start sending most of your cards back to zero, just remember this and know it’s not a failure of Anki or SRS.
So how do you use SRS? As you are learning Pali, once you learn and understand a word, make a card for it. Even better, make a card for a phrase or sentence that uses the word. Or make a card where you have to fill in a blank with the word.
And if you keep failing a card at the two or three week mark, Do what you should have done in the first place and actually learn, understand, and memorize the information on the card. Either that or remove the card and move on.
SRS can be an amazing tool for building and maintaining your Pali skills. But it’s not a silver bullet. You have to use the tool correctly or it won’t give you the result you want. For a reminder, see MN126.