Imitater (PvZ)

Imitater is a plant in Plants vs. Zombies, Plants vs. Zombies: Journey to the West, and Plants vs. Zombies: Great Wall Edition. His special ability is that he can copy any plant and its abilities, except upgrade plants and itself. He can be used to effectively cut the recharge time of plants in half, although he takes up another seed slot.

History
The Imitater is one of three last plants obtainable in the game. He costs $30,000 to purchase the seed packet from Crazy Dave's Twiddydinkies, making him the most expensive plant in the game.

After purchasing the Imitater, he appears on the lower right part of the plant selection screen in a new added box on the side when choosing your seeds. Selecting it brings up an overlay, asking which plant it shall imitate for the round. After selecting, he will take up a slot as the imitated plant in a melancholy gray or shaded green (depending on version).

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."

Usage
The Imitater, when planted, will appear as himself, but after three seconds (1.5 seconds in the DS version) he will transform into his copied form, and also has the disadvantage of being defeated while transforming. The copied form costs as much and behaves just like the original plant. On most versions of the original Plants vs. Zombies, the plant will appear monochrome (silver) colored. On the iOS and Android versions, the Imitater version is the same color as the regular plant. Imitated explosives will explode, and an Imitater Tall-nut has the same health as a regular one (but can be jumped over before turning into the imitated Tall-nut, and can be eaten by the zombies at the same rate as eating regular plants).

Note: The Imitater cannot copy upgrade plants such as the Gloom-shroom or the Cob Cannon without hacking. He is also unable to imitate more than one plant at once or himself.

In Plants vs. Zombies, it is recommended to choose the original seed packet as well or to use the original version of the plant before using the Imitater version. There is no clear benefit to having only the Imitater, as it requires time to transform but is otherwise identical to the original plant. Therefore, an Imitater can be eaten, crushed, or smashed by a zombie while transforming, ruining the player's advantage to copy the plant. So planting imitated plants like a Cherry Bomb should be planted further than a normal one from zombies.

Strategies
The Imitater can be used to effectively half the recharge time for the selected plant, assuming the copied plant was also selected. At the starting of a Survival: Endless level, use the Imitater to imitate a Sunflower to make your sun production faster.

Good candidates for Imitation: The only disadvantages to the Imitater are that he can only imitate one plant in a level, the time he takes to transform, and that the Imitaters consume one seed packet if one wishes to use him effectively. When placed right in front of zombies, they may eat him before he finishes transforming. This is mainly a problem when using him to imitate explosives which are placed right into the middle of the group of zombies they are intended to destroy. He also creates a problem when trying to use him as a last minute defensive plant, as he takes a regular amount of bites to eat him while he is transforming.
 * Wall-nut
 * Tall-nut
 * Pumpkin
 * Squash
 * Sunflower
 * Sun-shroom
 * Jalapeno
 * Cherry Bomb
 * Doom-shroom
 * Potato Mine
 * Ice-shroom
 * Marigold (if gold farming)
 * Puff-shroom (delaying zombies)
 * Sea-shroom
 * Tangle Kelp
 * Starfruit (if playing Seeing Stars or trying to get Shooting Star)
 * Hypno-shroom (if level has many tough zombies like Football Zombie that can eat but not with non-eating ones)
 * Any other plant with a slow or very slow recharge.

Trivia

 * In his Suburban Almanac entry, it says that he remembers the Zombie Wars of '76 (1976, to be exact), obviously meaning there was more than one battle that zombies kept losing, since there are still humans.
 * This might be a reference to Vietnam War.
 * His statistics can be shown on the top left hand corner of the Suburban Almanac, where there is a small picture of itself that is only found when it is bought. This can be hard for players to find on their own, so the Tree of Wisdom will tell them it is there.
 * In iOS and Android versions, it will have a regular seed packet icon in the Almanac since the Tree of Wisdom is absent.
 * When flattened, he will turn into the flat version of the copied plant with its original color, even before transforming.
 * In iOS and Android versions, he turns into an exact replica without the black and white color, although the seed packet appears greenish.
 * He cannot copy upgrade plants, although the imitated plant can be upgraded. If an imitated plant is upgraded, it returns to the "normal" color of the upgrade.
 * Imitated plants are gray, yet the projectiles they fire are exactly the same color as the original projectile.
 * Since the copied plants of the Imitater are not monochrome in the iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad versions, the seed packets for the copied plants are different from the PC and Mac version. In the iPod Touch and iPhone version, the seed packets are shaded by a green square. In the iPad, the seed packet is shaded by a yellow square.
 * His transforming animation is not shown on the DS version. Instead, he stands for a while, then spins quickly once and turn into the imitated plant with soil under it and a planting sound.
 * When he copies a plant, the copied plant is in full health, even if he was damaged before it transforms.
 * In the Xbox Live Arcade version of Plants vs. Zombies, in Co-op Mode, the game will never let the player pick him when there are already three seeds or more selected.
 * His seed packet says "Bloom and Doom" instead of the full "Bloom and Doom Seed Co."
 * He is the only plant that can be planted on any environment since his properties depend on the plant he is supposed to imitate.
 * When an imitated Chomper eats a zombie, the zombie's arm turns black and white, because the zombie arm is considered as the Chomper's sprite.
 * In the iPad version, if you choose the original plant first, then open the Imitater overlay, the seed packet will darken as if it were not recommended for the level.
 * In an update to the Android version of the game, his seed packet changed color when in the seed selection screen to gray, but in-game, it is still green and imitated plants are still full-colored.
 * If the player uses the Android-Imitating Upgrade plants glitch, and imitates Imitater, he will keep imitating himself over and over again.
 * It is the only plant in the entire game who does not have a specific sun cost.

Imitator Имитатор Imitater