Hopefully this blog will become a bi-weekly thing, but I will be doing stuff IRL too, so I might need to postpone it... however, I will definitely post what's going on if I fail to deliver, so yea.
While the individual skill of teammates and the teamwork of a team do come into play during the average match of league, the greater majority of matches are determined not by skill or teamwork, but rather an economic advantage.
But how much is an overwhelming advantage, and by how much does it affect the game's outcome? At the highest level of professional play, data collected by Kronen suggested that in Season 2, the team that had as little as a 7% gold advantage over the course of the game nearly always won their matches.
As a natural consequence of league design, it is much easier to win by denying gold farm rather than passively farming. For example, it is easier to have a 70 (7% of 1 000 ) gold advantage rather than a 700 gold one. Therefore the meta conclusion subconciously derived by all competent players is to play kill lanes, pick counters, and gank well. This is why people feel the need to kill other players all the time.
Tentatively, this also suggests that "Late-scaling champions" such as Nasus and Vayne do not actually guarantee a win if going into late game, and that winning is directly related only to skill and economy.