Nivmagus?

[Mana Leaked]

Nivmagus elemental is a pretty cool card. But where can you exile things from? Hand or Graveyard?

[Leharic]

Rulings from Gatherer:

10/1/2012: You exile an instant or sorcery spell you control from the stack, not an instant or sorcery card in any other zone.

You have to actually cast the spell first.

[darknight587]

You cast a spell, then before it resolves you exile the spell from the game thus the spell does not resolve but Nivmagus gets the counters. The idea is you cast a spell, opponate counters the spell thus you just exile it so you still get the effect. In practice you run a bunch of 1 cost instants to cast/exile to beef Nivmagus up.