Small players go home
To start off, I want to congratulate Plarium with Asgard. I think it is a great start for constructing a Meta-game. You have tons of work on your hands to get it working, but surely the platform is there.
Unfortunately there is a heavy price to be paid for this and the casual gamer is once more the victim. There was a time when this type of player could eventually make it to the top (that was lvl 35 then) and lower lvls could still make a difference, but lvl 40 really requires a lot of money to reach. And then you're still far away from the top because collecting a bunch of town skins and hero skins, not to mention the shaman weapon upgrades and the celestial gems. No, It's not going to happen.
Now basically, that would be ok if Plarium would seperate events for (heavy) lvl 40's from the rest, but that is clearly not happening, rather the opposite. Weaker players are increasingly irrelevant for Plarium as far as battle events go. Holmgang is only for 3t+ clans and weaker clans are wiped away if here is just a single lvl 40 in the opponents clan so that's a no go. KvK seems to be reduced to just one event - if not eradicated - so there is just CvC and Fury of which the latter is in fact also dominated by the big players. Even a lvl 39 with a few town skins is not safe when the Towers appear and generally simply soo slow. So spend lots of money to become a lvl 40 or go home.
Now you may think joining a powerful clan would be a solution, but first, they have to allow (and keep) you in, and next you won't catch many soul shards because the large majority will go to the big players. You will catch a lot of gold, but given the amount you need to upgrade all your level 2 special knowledge, it will still take forever.
So, no, I think the game is dead. I spent over 800 USD last year to this game, and this year so far 10 USD and I don't think I will spend any more. I think Plants vs. Zombies is more fun.