I haven't played a game during Lent -- in fact I haven't even played one match since Genesect was banished. I do not consider the game addictive in the sense that it causes chemical or neurological dependence. One of the reasons why I decided to stop is that Pokemon battling apparently has little utility outside of a small niche community and there appeared to be more fruitful uses of my intellectual energy. Many people underestimate Pokemon battling as a children's avocation, but it is remarkable intellectually challenge that requires considerable metagame knowledge and mastery of game mechanics, tactics, strategy and game theory. No battle is ever the same, and one needs to adapt to the challenges presented by the opponent's strategy and Pokemon. As Reggie would say (in "Peddle to the Mettle" watching Ash and Paul's first full battle):
Brock: Paul's goal is to obviously to overwhelm Ash.
Dawn: He wants to overwhelm Ash!?
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Paul: *To Honchkrow* Now use Haze!
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Dawn: You know, now that you mentioned it. Paul's battle style seems different than usual.
Brock: Normally, the battles we've seen Paul in are ones where he is busy polishing his Pokemon's moves or when his complete objection is testing their strength.
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Ash: *To Grotle* Razor Leaf, let's go!
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Brock: But it is not like that at all today.
Reggie: A Pokemon battle would test both a trainer's intellectual ability as well as judgment. Yeah, Paul has dissected Ash's battle style that keeps from battling soundly. And that means Paul is going at with nothing less than a one hundred percent sure win.
Most of my battles after the release of X and Y largely focused on testing and getting familiar with various tactics and Pokemon on weaker (lower rated) trainers and getting some familiarity with the metagame as I intentionally lost a few initial matches under a new alt. I seldomly played to the best of my ability. I needed to have to confidence in my own power and skills so I could move on from a loss and not be dejected because I considered the loss to be a personal failure.
I remember having my thoughts preoccupied with team construction around December 2012-January 2013 since it posed the exciting challenge of constructing a team that can perform well against the novel Gen 6 meta. Also, it is nice to be intimately acquainted with the strengths and weaknesses of various Pokemon by actually using and facing them, instead of having it as theoretical knowledge ascertained through analysis. I mostly focused on team building though so I probably had only about 100 battles in December and 50 in January, with 34 battles on one overnight laddering run playing to the best of my ability. I didn't get a high ELO rating in January due to the lack of battles, but my GLICKO was >1700. I quit playing being content with my performance, seeing that I certainly had the potential to do even better. (I really felt I could improve my team since I thought that my Kyurem-B really hindered me due to its low speed and weakness to Stealth Rock, which prevented me from using it. I won most of my battles without Kyurem-B playing a significant role as I did not encounter many stall teams or the rest of my team was able to get by walls.) My "poor" performance (although I wasn't a newbie) was based on an extreme emphasis on preliminary preparation and team construction by mentally rehearsing match ups in my mind and running numerous damage calculations at the expense of actual experience which hindered my development of the ability to predict beyond simple game theory considerations and the acquisition of the patience necessary to prevail in protracted matches against stall teams.
From what I read, the metagame has considerably evolved after the Genesect/Mega Lucario ban. It became much less focused on Rotom-W, Talonflame, and Conkeldurr and more on Keldeo, Aegislash, Bisharp, and Thundurus. I could at least say that I used Thundurus as an offensive Mega Pinsir/Charizard Y/Adamant Talonflame check, mixed attacker with LO Superpower, emergency button with Prankster TW when it was low OU based on the usage statistics. However, I previously dismissed it as a Pokemon able to spread paralysis and found its power without LO wanting, but OU its usage has skyrocketed.
(Note: that paragraph was not intended to elicit a discussion about the metagame or the merits of particular Pokemon, but to provide a subjective perspective on how the metagame has changed during the last two months.)