Not TMI, I love talking about disc selection and building bags. Kinda hijacked the thread but hopefully the OP is getting something out of all the conversations.
I'm probably going to get notorious for thread-jacking if I post here enough. Too many interesting things to talk about. But, I think this conversation is actually probably really good for any new player to read, so it's in the right place and with the right spirit.
So there's a lot of talk out there around "mold minimization." I'm going to try to sell you and anyone else who is reading this on the idea.
I definitely agree with the idea of getting to a fairly limited set of molds that I am very familiar with. Everything you are saying about field work makes complete sense. I look at where I am now as a process, not a destination. That said, picking the molds that you want doesn't seem to me to be a scientific process. You can't just look at some flight numbers, measure the size of your handspan, wingspan, waist, tallywacker, whatever and then know what disc will work for you. Ball golf at least has club fitters and launch monitors, however sketch that may be.
Absent buying a set of starter discs and then just saying "these must be good enough, they are in a starter pack and I am starting", there isn't any way to get to a set of molds that work for me without some trial and error. As a new player, without any friends who play the game that is especially difficult. I actually asked where I should buy discs (or maybe saw it in a thread somewhere, or I searched for it) in NC and I was pointed at the various disc web sites. I didn't think that Play It Again was actually all that useful on that front, but maybe that is misinformation.
But, regardless, I found it very valuable to buy 10 (actually 12 including two different starter packs) different putter molds. I could have just gone "a Luna or Fierce is good enough for the best players currently in the game, one of them must be good enough for me", but it turns out that the Challenger was the most comfortable of them. It also turns out I don't really like it in anything other than base plastic, and not as a throwing putter, but I wouldn't know that without having gone through the process of trying
As a 50 year old who is lucky enough to work in tech, money isn't a huge issue, even though I am at the tail end of having two kids in college. Plus, there is a certain amount of joy in getting various cool stamps.
Like I said, eventually I'll sell a bunch of these discs and get back some of what I have invested. Having played a lot of ball golf, it's definitely cheaper than greens fees, range tokens, golf balls, new or used clubs, club fitting, etc. I can play 10 or even 20 rounds of disc golf in a week for nothing other than equipment I've bought. That's some serious value. Last summer I was lucky to get out for 2 or 3 rounds of ball golf in a week. The only annoying things is needing to find somewhere decent to do field work (especially with all the local fields closed due to Covid).
So what I'm doing now with all of these different molds is just exploring the possibilities.
Plus, other than that one putter, I pretty much haven't liked what I have thrown in base plastic nearly as much as the more premium plastics. Maybe I am "doing it wrong", but I don't know really how to determine these things other than to try stuff.
Regarding your bag, I'd encourage you to decide between the compass and the leopard since they seem to overlap based on the flight numbers, then definitely add in that explorer. Learn to hit every type of shot with your Atom, one of the Compass or Leopard, and the Explorer, and ditch everything else for now. Guarantee your game will improve.
I think you mean I should decide between the Explorer and the Leopard. Compass is a mid-range at speed 5. Explorer is a fairway driver at speed 7. Leopard is theoretically in between them at speed 6, but ... I'm not sure how. Much lower profile and dead flat compared to the Explorer (which is just a bit domey), although the rim isn't quite as wide.
But that Explorer is too overstable for me to replace the Leo with. Even though the Leopard in GStar plastic is much beefier than I expected, it's straight for most of it's flight, with a prominent fade at the end and is just starting to beat in to a little understable for me. Maybe I should be looking for beat in Explorers, but right now that is functioning more like an OS mid for me. The Leo is probably the disc I can huck furthest right now, out of everything.
The Compass is just a straight flyer. Not giving that up. Love that disc!