While I know that some people are not fond of the recent changes bringing the ability to increase the rarity of cards and the trait system, because it has created 2-3 very strong teams, I was thinking about why the meta game is so static considering there really is huge variation in teams available right now.
I think it just comes down to the cost of experimentation. It is too high.
Since souls are needed to raise troop level, and realistically you need troops to be at least level 10+ if not at least 15+ to be viable fairly quickly (75 levels maybe?), there really is no ability to do anything other than go with what is known to be effective.
I have lots of ideas for great troop setups and new configurations, but even in the high 100s with a good Valk soul farming team with Celestial Armor, it just takes too long to train up new teams and see if they would be viable. So you stick to goblins or true damage or what you know works most of the time and go back to farming PvP for gold to raise towns, as that becomes a priority, not souls.
We no longer are burning extra troops for souls, but the soul economy has not changed. While I get that it is an avenue for monetization, the reality is that being able to play with more variations of troop setups is better for the meta game, but that needs more flexibility in getting troops up to play level.