Why is Psychic Venom blue?

"Pinging" was how blue was supposed to win in early Magic; either through creatures like Prodigal Sorcerer/Pirate Ship or tax-like effects that slowly drain a player like Power Leak, Feedback or Psychic Venom and/or related to that "punishment" effects that basically are soft removal like Creature Bond and again Psychic Venom.

From the perspective of Alpha it makes incredible sense to be blue.

Fourth Edition doubled down on that theme with Relic Bind & Backfire. Seventh Edition is the first core set to not have that card after the theme slowly got pushed out of blue except for pingers, so it was the second to last bastion of that theme.

I like the colorshift though I think this effect is more black these days than red (lifeloss versus damage question aside). Contaminated Ground and Pooling Venom for example.

Both Contaminated Ground and Pooling Venom are effectively colorshifts of Psychic Venom with a little extra boost, so I might add a little extra rider on this one as well.

I do really like the new added extra rider of making it unable to active its non-mana abilities. I don't know if it's really the type of thing you can just slap on top of it without modifying the cost at all. Is there some sort of specific goal for this card? Increasing its mana value is prolly a bit much, dunno, so could it perhaps cost ?