Imitater

The Imitater is a potato spud artist who can mimic almost any plant that you have in your possession.

It costs $30,000 to buy the seed packet from Crazy Dave.

Usage
After purchasing the Imitater, he appears on the lower right part of the plant selection screen when choosing your seeds. Selecting him brings up an overlay, asking which plant he shall imitate for the round. After selecting, he will take up a slot as the imitated plant in a melancholy gray.


 * Note*: The Imitater cannot copy upgraded plants such as the Gloom Shroom and the Cob Cannon.

The Imitator, when planted, will appear as himself, but after a second or two, transforms into his copied form. The copied form, aside from being gray, costs as much and behaves just like the original plant. Imitated Cherry Bombs will explode. Imitated Tall-nuts can take loads of damage.

Note: The player does not need to have the original seed chosen as well. The Imitater does not need to have an original plant be planted on the field as well. However, this is not recommended, because the Imitater needs to transform before turning into whatever it is imitating, but is otherwise the same.

Suburban Almanac Entry
Imitater Imitaters let you use two of the same plant during a level! "I remember the Zombie Wars back in '76," says Imitater in a raspy, old-man's voice. "Back then, we didn't have all these fancy peashooters and jalapenos. All we had was guts. Guts and a spoon."

Strategy
The Imitater can be used to effectively halve the recharge time for the selected plant, assuming the copied plant was also selected.

Good candidates for Imitation:


 * Wall-nut
 * Tall-nut
 * Pumpkin
 * Potato Mine
 * Squash
 * Puff-shroom or Sea-shroom (on night levels the player is free to spam two free shrooms at a time)
 * Jalapeno
 * Cherry Bomb

The problem with the Imitater is that it takes time to transform, making it somewhat slow on attacking zombies right on top of it, meaning that its effectiveness as an explosive is reduced. However, this is not as much of a detriment with defensive plants or the free -shrooms, as zombies will still have to stop to eat the defensive plant when halfway through a square, and the zombies will pause to eat the shroom. It is generally not a problem with Jalepenos, which can be planted well away from the offensive zombies.

Cherry Bombs are seen as one of the more risky prospects, as it requires fine timing. This is because the Imitater may be eaten before it transforms and explode.