[Verjigorm]

I've tried the standard SC's. The Cyclops is a weak choice for EA Arcoscephale. They already have significant earth power and Earth mages do not stand in as much need of an Earth blessing.

Cyclops' paths cost too much to make him useful in diversifying magic, and even if you still want the Earth blessing, you can take the Master Druid and get a dual bless with nature cheaper than you ever could with the Cyclops and he allows better magical diversity, even though you don't really need it for anything besides Death which you could do nicely using the Lord of Rebirth who, in CBM, will provide you with an excellent additional gem supply in exchange for the points and costs slightly less. In Vanilla, I doubt he's worth the 125 cost.

I prefer Immortals (especially Phoenix for early expansion), Rainbows (for site searches and easy access to all paths), and Big Astral--I found that a Sphinx with Death magic like this one (CBM) can make for interesting late game strategies.

Sphinx (Body 159, 500 hits)
Magic: Earth 6 Astral 10 Death 6
Dominion 5
Scales: Order 3 Sloth 2
Imprisoned

You want Thaum-8 or better by the time he escapes so he can teleport.

Stygian Paths to your enemies capitol and supply him with gems. He just casts a lot of Thaumaturgy spells:

Master Enslave
Undead Mastery
Soul Drain
Wither Bones
Burden of Time (if you plan to go with this strategy, of course, you'd want to take neutral or production scales, magic 1 or 3 and not get too many Philosophers, and I've never tried using BoT with Arco, but Orieads are relatively resistant to BoT)

You also get Charm on your Orieads which is one of the things they're great for, and access to the very useful Gale Gate, Imprint Souls, etc...