If you’ve watched much amiibo training content on YouTube and the like, perhaps you’re aware of Battle Arenas and the fact that Figure Players can be used in them. In that case, you may be wondering why so many competitive tournaments don’t make use of Arenas — the short answer isconvenience.Ever since the old days ofSuper Smash Bros. 4amiibo training, players have been backing up and sending their FP’s training files to tournament hosts, who then bring these chunks of data to life on their own Nintendo Switch consoles. If you’ve got a fully-trained Figure Player and an Android device with NFC capabilities, then there are two ways for you to retrieve your training files: the NFC Tools app or the TagMo app. In this particular guide, we’re going to discuss how to use TagMo to back up your amiibo and send them away to compete in tourneys!
Special thanks to The Gold Mario for contributing the information presented in this guide!
Setup
First things first — TagMo only works on Android devices, so if you have a different kind of cell phone, check out our NFC Tools guide instead. Now then, TagMo isn’t available on any official app store — you’ll have to open up your phone’s internet browser and then follow this link to download the application. Once you’ve arrived on the GitHub page, scroll down to the part of the page that says “Releases”. Click the latest version, open up the dropdown menu that says “Assets”, and then download TagMo’s corresponding .apk file. Open it (you might need to fiddle with your phone’s settings to allow app installations from unknown sources) and then install it. Once that’s all wrapped up, you’ve done it — you can now start backing up amiibo files!Well, sort of.
You see, TagMo actually requires special files called amiibo keysto be able to properly function. For reasons you might be able to guess, we can’t link these files here — you’ll have to find them on your own. We can at leastoffer a bit of guidance, though; once you open TagMo, tap the gear icon in the top-right corner and the app will tell you more about the kinds of files it needs. A quick search should yield exactly the files you’re looking for! Download them to your phone, and then import them into the TagMo app.Nowyou’re all set and ready to go: congratulations!
Backup & Restore
Take a look above to see what TagMo’s main menu looks like. Right away, you’ll notice two main functions: Load Tag and Scan Tag. It should be noted thattagrefers toamiiboin this instance. So let’s say you have a fully-trained Figure Player and you want to retrieve its data: select “Scan Tag”, and tap the figurine to your phone’s NFC touchpoint (which can be slightly different depending on its make and model). If done correctly, you’ll see a screen that shows you a picture of the character you just scanned. From here, choose “Save Tag” and TagMo will save the file to its directory. Your amiibo’s .bin file is now located in a folder called “tagmo” at the root of your phone’s storage; if you’re able to hook your phone up to a PC, you can access this folder and directly retrieve your FP’s training file. Otherwise, fire up your phone’s file browser and move the .bin file to the Downloads folder — that way, you’ll be able to more easily access your amiibo file if you intend to send it via a direct message later on.
If you own blank NFC cards (which you can purchase at online retailers), TagMo’s “Write Tag” option will write a .bin file of your choosing to that blank card — permanently. Once it’s been loaded up with a character, you can’t change that, so be careful!
As we’ll discuss below, you can actually edit your FP’s training file to add and remove Spirits via SubmissionApp. If you’ve got an edited file from that site, you can use TagMo’s “Restore Tag” option to write the updated file back to the amiibo figure.
If you want to write or restore an amiibo with a .bin file you’ve already saved to your phone, select the “Load Tag” option. TagMo has a neat function, too: if you have an old Mario amiibo and a new one and would like to transfer the old Mario’s training data to the new figure, you can put a checkmark in the “Allow restore to different tag” box to make that happen. Above all else, make sure you save a backup of your original amiibo just in case something goes wrong — and don’t write things to your figurines unless you’re sure you know what you’re doing. Better safe than sorry, right?
File Editing
Time to get into thegoodstuff: editing your FP’s training file. One quick note: don’t use TagMo’s “Edit SSB Data” function; it’s intended forSuper Smash Bros. 4-formatted FPs. With that out of the way, you can change your amiibo’s Spirit setup anytime via the SubmissionApp site. With this, you’ll be able to upload your FP’s .bin file and browse a user-friendly interface that’ll help you equip whichever Spirits you want. Plus, you can use our character guides if you need help deciding what spreads you want to use. How convenient! Once you’re finished editing your FP, download its file from SubmissionApp and then load it into TagMo with the “Load Tag” function. Then you can tap “Restore Tag”, hold your amiibo figure to your phone’s NFC touchpoint, and boom: the changes have been made! It should be noted that editing your FP’s Spirit team is perfectly legal for tournaments — as long as the setup is possible in-game.
And that’s just about everything you need to know regarding TagMo usage! Once you’ve obtained your FP’s training file, you can send it off to the tournament host to compete. In case you’re wondering where to find all the latest tourneys, the answer is over at our Discord server! Feel free to join and say hi, plus we can help you with any questions you may have! For your reference, we’ve also got guides on amiibo Powersaves (TagMo actually includes experimental functionality with Power Tags, if you’ve got one of those) and NFC Tools. Thanks so much for reading — we hope this guide helped you!
If you would like to read more amiibo training guides, pleasefollow this link.
