After you have spent some time at Isengard, Saruman tasks you with travelling to Methedras in order to capture the orc Mugash, whom he, for some reason, wants to be taken alive. In this quest you will take on the role of the heroes sneaking to the Misty Mountains, looking for Mugash with the ever-present threat of alerting the orcs looming over you.

This quest is very unique in that it will take twenty cards out of your deck at the beginning which you will search through for Mugash. It also changes up the time keyword introduced in the previous quest The Fords of Isen and uses it to represent

the danger of you being discovered and becoming the hunted instead of the hunter. It is also one of the more difficult quests of this cycle. You can potentially face high attack enemies early, get severely punished for removing time counters from the quest card (so severely even, that it often will end in a straight out loss of the game) and face the constant threat of becoming location-locked due to focus on locations in this scenario. The difficulty can likewise fluctuate a lot, depending on when you actually happen to find Mugash; find him too early and you will not ready to deal with him, find him too late and the chances of you getting lost in the mountains (or location-locked in game terms) constantly get higher.

To Catch an Orc

• Found in: The Voice of Isengard deluxe expansion
• Official difficulty: 4
• Community difficulty: 7
• Encounter sets: Broken Lands, Misty Mountain Orcs, To Catch an Orc
• Quest cards: 3
• Play if: You want a unique experience that takes a huge chunk of your deck away, you want to test a deck for consistency, you want to test whether your deck can handle locations competently, you want to play a location-heavy quest that is arguably more interesting than Hill of Emyn Muil
• What is different about this quest: the out-of-play deck, the search mechanic, time counters representing sneaking around instead of a time limit, boss-enemy that tries to escape.
• Solo or Multiplayer?: This quest becomes increasingly difficult the higher the number of players. In higher player counts you will start with a high number of locations in the staging area, which can lead to you becoming location locked quickly if you don’t get early location control. Some cards (Orc Territory in particular) also become much more dangerous in higher player counts, as does the time effect on stage two, which will often lead to unsalvagable situations in four or three player games. This threat is much lower in solo, however, you might find it difficult to finish the quest once you have a hero guarding Mugash. Still, if you find Mugash too early, solo players will have bigger problems dealing with him without other players being able to help out.
• Can I run Side-Quests for this scenario?: You cannot and should in no cases run side quests against this scenario. This has a lot to do with the way the word „then“ functions in this game. Since on stage two you would cancel all progress on the quest and only THEN place an additional time counter on this stage, progress placed on the quest card is the condition for you adding a time counter to the stage. (The official ruling by lead designer Caleb Grace with regards to this quest can be found here) Because of the effect of time counters running out being so dangerous, taking side quests up against this scenario would be very risky if not impossible.

The Quest

Setup

For setup, you will have to set up the unique mechanic of this quest. This part of the quest has you remove the top twenty cards of your deck to create an out-of-play deck. (Be aware that this happens after drawing your opening hand and maybe taking a mulligan so you will have your full deck available for that.) Then you will shuffle Mugash and a copy of Mugash’s Guard for each other player in the game into these decks, so you don’t know where they are and have to find them first. Some locations in this scenario will allow all players or only the first player to search these out-of-play decks for Mugash and his guard (represented by the Searches keyword). You will look at a specified number of cards of the top of your out-of-play deck, add each enemy found among them to the staging area and choose one of the other cards to add to your hand. Additionally, there are card effects that will have you just discard cards from these extra decks (only adding the potential enemies to the staging area) or that will force you to shuffle cards into the out-of-play deck.

This mechanic poses some deck-building challenges. While the ability to choose one from the looked at cards is nice and serves as a form of selective card draw, you might find yourself having to discard central cards of your strategy. This can be circumvented by a number of ways. First, it’s a good idea to build your decks for consistency. This way you might not end up with central pieces of your multi-card combo buried into your out-of-play deck. If you’re looking for central cards within your deck, for example, Light of Valinor, or your important location control pieces, you might find yourself wanting to mulligan aggressively for them, because you might not be able to find them for a while. You can also use recursion effects like the Record attachments or Dwarven Tomb to retrieve cards you were forced to discard. If you include cards that can be played from your discard pile like Elven-light or ally Glorfindel these can also be safely discarded by the Searches keyword only to be brought back into play at a later time.

Quest card 1: Orders from Orthanc – no quest points

This quest card essentially just continues the setup instructions that didn’t fit on stage 1A and after resolving the when revealed-effect you will automatically advance to stage two where the actual quest will start. You will have to search the encounter deck for one mountain location per player and add them to the staging area. This is already the beginning of the constant threat of location lock in this scenario so you will have to make careful choices in order to mitigate that danger.

There really is no clear answer to what locations you should add to the staging area on this stage. No location is particularly easier than another in all circumstances combined and your ideal choices will hugely depend on the number of players and also the cards in your opening hand as well as the decks you’re playing. You should also be aware of the fact, that you don’t have to choose different locations (unlike The Fords of Isen) so you can mix and match locations to your liking. I will try to give some general pointers for this stage, but it will be impossible to describe every possible starting situation you might find yourself in.

Methedras is one of the more harmless locations while it is still in the staging area. Only contributing two threat, it does not pose too much of a threat early on and can be a good choice because of that. It massively contributes to the danger of locations when made the active location though, so it is a good target for location control effects like Northern Tracker that can chip away at the three quest points in a somewhat fast fashion, while at the same time not boosting the threat of the other locations in the staging area. You could even add it to the staging area more than once because two of them will still only contribute four threat unless made active. Despite its four threat, Mugash’s Lair can also be worth considering if you start the game with Asfaloth (plus Glorfindel) or Evening Star in your hand. With these cards, you will be able to remove the location from the staging area before questing and even avoid ist forced effect. In lower player counts, especially solo, Orc Cave can also be a good choice because the travel effect will be less dangerous and the potential for it to not do anything will be even higher. Be aware that Broken Lands does not have the mountain trait (it’s a highlands card) so it is not possible to add this card to the staging area at this time.

Generally, the things to take into account when choosing locations to add to the staging area are the questing power your deck(s) will be able to bring to the table early and the amount of location control in your opening hands.

Quest card 2: Searching for Mugash – no quest points

This stage is when the quest really starts. As pointed out above, it doesn’t require you to make a specific amount of progress, but you still will want to make progress every round. The reason for this can be found in the effects of the quest card. Placing progress will allow the players to add a time counter to this stage, bringing the net down to zero when time counters removed at the end of the round. This is very valuable because the effect when time counters run out will have you reveal two encounter cards per player and even the four encounter cards for two players (to not speak about three or four players) will often lead to situations you will find yourself unable to get out of.

Some encounter cards in this scenario will offer you the choice between removing a time counter from the quest or suffering a nasty effect (alongside a shadow card that will remove a time counter when destroying a character). The effect described above means you should never (or in almost every case) choose the option to remove a time

counter from the quest stage. The effects of the revealed encounter cards as well as the threat added to the staging area will certainly be worse than the effect your suffering at the moment (starting a vicious cycle of not being able to quest successfully and adding even more threat to the staging area when the time counters run out again). However, in true solo play, you sometimes have a little more freedom when removing time counters. The effect on Orc Hunter for example can sometimes be so dangerous to a solo player (for example when an Orc Hound surges into the Hunter and your sure of not being able to deal with one more enemy this turn), that suffering two encounter cards later is the preferable option compared to revealing one additional encounter card now. This is a very corner case situation, however, and you should keep not removing time counters from the quest in your mind as a general rule, that will serve you greatly when playing this scenario.

Alongside the danger of being discovered by orcs, which is represented by the time counters, you will also search for Mugash in your out-of-play decks. The Searches keyword can be somewhat of a double-edged sword in the early game where you will want to clear those locations and maybe find a card you are looking for in your out of play deck, but at the same time will not be ready deal with the dangerous enemy that is Mugash as well as his guard. This is also where the difficulty of the quest can fluctuate quite a bit depending on when you can find Mugash in your out-of-play decks. You might find him with the first location you clear, you might reveal multiple dangerous enemies at the same time from the effect on Methedras or you might play the game for many rounds before finding him, increasing the threat of not being able to cancel the dangerous Orc Territory anymore. There’s no denying that there is definitely luck involved in how your search for Mugash will turn out and sometimes you will find yourself up against almost impossible odds, while sometimes you will find Mugash just when you’re ready for him. It can be dangerous to trigger the Searches keywords too early, and if you can you might want to hold back at least two or three rounds to establish your board state and be able to fight Mugash, although this will not always be possible with the constant danger of location lock looming over you.

Quest card 3: The Wizard’s Price – 15 quest points

Once you have found Mugash you will immediately advance to this stage the next time you quest successfully. Again you will try to run out the clock until the time counters run out and additional encounter cards are revealed and added to the staging area. This stage, however, is a lot less punishing with the number of encounter cards revealed so you will have a little more leeway in approaching this stage. You will have to defeat Mugash (possibly several times because of the time effect), attach him to a hero and place fifteen progress on the stage before winning this scenario.

The best way to approach this differs from the number of players. Since after Mugash is defeated you will essentially lose a hero for the remainder of the quest (or until the time counters run out), in true solo, it will be difficult to balance combat and questing once Mugash is attached to a hero. In that case it can be a good idea to keep Mugash engaged with you until the staging area has a little less threat if that wasn’t the case already. You won’t have to care about the time counters a lot in this case because the effect will only return Mugash to the staging area (which is still 4 threat, however) and no additional encounter cards will be revealed. In higher player counts it is generally more advisable to capture Mugash more quickly and then go for a big questing push, which hopefully brings you over the required threshold to win the quest. (Staging area threat control like Secret Paths and Radagast’s Cunning can help a lot with this.) This also means that in lower player counts you will have a little more flexibility with the removal of time counters from this stage, while in higher player counts the effect can still significantly hinder your plans.

If you happen to lose Mugash at this stage, you will be unable to place progress on this stage. In that case, try to clear locations each turn, just to get rid of any location lock you might find yourself in. The next best thing to do, is to have a couple of sidequests in play, so you will be able to quest against those while recapturing Mugash. The side-quests might help you in lowering your threat or getting rid of other enemies, allowing you to focus on Mugash better.

After the players have succesfully placed the final progress token on this quest stage, and Mugash is under their control, the players have won the game. Now that Mugash has been captured, all you have to do is to bring him to Orthanc. How hard can that be?

The Encounter Deck

Global

• There are 33 cards in the encounter deck in Normal mode; 27 in Easy mode. (Not counting the copies of Mugash and Mugash’s Guard which will be shuffled into the out-of-play decks.)
• Shadow effects appear on 52% of the cards in Normal mode and 56% in Easy mode, which makes easy mode slightly harder in that regard. Shadow effects cover the whole range of possibilities from exhausting characters, attack boosts, additional attacks and attachment discards to removing time counters when destroying a character.
• The encounter deck has a whopping 2 average threat on each card in Normal mode and an even higher 2.3 threat in Easy mode. This is what makes this quest this difficult and also not makes Easy mode any easier, although you won’t have to deal with the Orc Territory treachery on Easy. (This is also not counting the four and three threat on Mugash and Mugash’s Guard respectively, which would up the average even more.)
• 5 cards have Surge in Normal mode; 3 in Easy mode. Orc Hunting Party will gain Surge when whiffing and Orc Hunter has quasi-Surge since you will usually have to choose to reveal the additional encounter card. This also contributes to the huge amount of threat you will add to the staging area every turn.
• The Doomed keyword is not present in this quest and no card in the encounter deck will raise your threat in other ways.
• No card is immune to player card effects, but Mugash himself cannot have attachments and Broken Lands will prevent progress from being placed on locations in the staging area.
• In both modes, seven cards will let at least one player search their out-of-play deck. Mugash’s Lair will not let you search but still might add Mugash or his guards to the staging area.

The biggest threat in the encounter deck is definitely the high average number of threat you will add to the staging area each turn. Combine that with some nasty effects on encounter cards, and you sometimes will get threat-locked quite quickly resulting in a quick loss. Staging area threat management, location control and good general questing power are definitely recommended for this quest. The encounter deck will also require you to do well against some tough enemies, so you have to be prepared for everything.

Locations

While the enemies can be dangerous, location lock is the biggest danger in this quest for sure. The importance of location control cannot be stressed enough for this quest. This not only includes locations in the staging area but also additional progress on the active location so the players can place progress on the main quest each round. Because of this cards like Strength of Will and Steed of Imladris can pull their weight in this quest. All locations except for Broken Lands also have the mountain trait, so if there are dwarf characters on the table Ancestral Knowledge can be a decent emergency button. In a similar way Distant Stars and Strider’s Path can be a good way to replace a high quest point location with less difficult ones should you find yourself coming up short on willpower on any given turn. Other than that, everything that places progress on locations in the staging area is a welcome sight. Clearing locations while still in the staging area is always valuable but in this quest every point of progress on a location you’re travelling to also increases the chance of not having to remove time counters, so every little bit can help. Options include your standard location control devices like Northern Tracker, Asfaloth and Evening Star, but also more niche options like Arod or Warden of Arnor. Especially with the need to clear the location every turn, you can also make good use out of Lorien Guide and Map of Rhovanion.

• Broken Lands: The only location in the encounter deck not having the mountain trait comes with a relatively small threat value of two and the high number of six quest points. While usually this would make it a good target to keep around in the staging area and travel to higher threat locations, the game text on this card prevents you from placing progress on locations in the staging area, making this card a danger you have to deal with quickly in order to keep your location control going. Another option would be attaching Thror’s Key to it and letting it sit in the staging area. With its high quest points, this location is a prime target for the effects of Strength of Will or Steed of Imladris, but you can also consider using cards like Ride to Ruin on it while active so you can place enough progress.
• Methedras: With its threat of two and three quest points as well as the threat boosting effect when active this is probably the best target to let sit in the staging area and explore with the location control effect of your choosing when possible. This can also let you time your search effects a little more since you might not be ready to deal with a high attack, high defence enemy early on. You should be aware, however, that this location will have every player search their out-of-play deck. This means you can, if unlucky, add more than one enemy to the staging area, especially in higher player counts. This can make using Northern Tracker dangerous in some cases when you explore more than one instance of Methedras at the same time. Should that be the case, try putting different values of progress on different copies of Methedras. Even one progress token from Arod can prevent this danger. This card can also be a prime target for Ride to Ruin because the effect will be able to explore it instantly.
• Orc Cave: This location is certainly one of the cards that become much more dangerous in higher player counts. While the effect is, even in the worst cases, pretty manageable in one or two player games, the threat of adding enemies to the staging area rises significantly in higher player counts. With its three threat and four quest points, it is also quite difficult to keep around in the staging area and use location control. Should you have excess location control this could be possible, but generally it is preferable to just time the moment your travelling to it, when there are not a lot (or no) enemies around and you are certain to be able to deal with the enemies that pop up as a result of the travel effect. You can also use cards like Strider’s Path, Thror’s Map or Thror’s Key to avoid the travel effect. The Orc Cave will also have the first player search the top five cards of their out-of-play deck. This means in solo you can find Mugash quite quickly if you can explore multiple copies of these. However, the high number of cards also means that you will discard a lot of cards directly to your discard pile and might lose out on a key card.
• Mugash’s Lair: Rounding out the locations in this scenario, this location has a constant effect that will have you discard the top cards of each player’s out-of-play deck and adding all enemies to the staging area. This means you won’t get access to the player cards discarded. While this could theoretically be a decent way to find Mugash if you know that you can spare the player cards, its four threat can significantly contribute to the danger of location lock. Luckily, it only has two quest points (making it a good target for Asfaloth and Evening Star) and no travel effect, which should make travelling to it an easy choice in most cases.

Enemies

The enemies in this quest show a huge range of strength. With values from one to seven attack, combined defence/hit point values from three to twelve and a couple of nasty game text effects you have to be ready for everything. Aside from the two creature enemies in this quest, all enemies have the orc trait. This means Blade of Gondolin is a very good choice in this quest, because you get an attack boost as well as some progress on the active location, making it easier to quest past it. In a similar way, Goblin-cleaver can dish out some serious damage against those orc enemies.

• Mugash: The big one you came here to capture, Mugash is, while not on par with the biggest boss enemies in the game, quite dangerous. With his seven attack, most characters will not be able to survive an attack from him. And with four defence and eight hit points he can easily be around for multiple rounds. Having a strong defender ready to deal with him should you finally find him is definitely recommended. Special attention should also be put towards the fact, that, while he cannot have attachments (so Forest Snare is off the table), you can use all kinds of attack prevention like Feint or Feigned Voices as well as direct damage effects like Goblin-cleaver or Gandalf against him. Having a way to prevent him from attacking is especially important should you happen to find him in the early game, when your defenders are not yet set up properly. Also, you should be aware of his engagement cost of one, which means you will have to deal with him immediately when he is found. In all cases, he is the prime target to spend the optional engagement on in multiplayer games to make sure he is engaged with the player most ready for him.
• Mugash’s Guard: Only slightly less dangerous than Mugash, there are a couple of things that differentiate these enemies from their leader. For one, there is the engagement cost of forty. Should you be able to deal with the three threat in the staging area you can keep this enemy there when revealed too early to deal with it properly. Secondly, the guard is not immune to attachments, which means Forest Snare suddenly becomes an option for not having to deal with the attack value of six in the long run. And thirdly, you will add Mugash’s Guard to the victory display when defeated. Since this enemy will primarily be a danger when Mugash is attached to a hero, defeating this orc before you defeat Mugash will make sure you will never have to deal with its game text. Of course, this is dependent on the randomness of your out-of-play deck, and should you find Mugash’s Guard only after you captured Mugash you should make sure to not have it destroy a character. Because of it engaging the player guarding Mugash, it is a sensible idea in higher player counts to have one dedicated combat-focused player that can take care of Mugash with a powered-up defender which then will also be ready to defend against the guard. In other cases, defenders with the Sentinel keyword are, of course, also an option.
• Orc Hunter: This enemy surges. It might be tempting to remove a time counter and not have to deal with an additional encounter card, but an ill-timed shadow effect on Methedras Orc will inevitably remove the second time counter from the quest and will get threat-locked instantly. Now that this is out of the way, this enemy does not really pose a high danger to the players. With three attack and only three hit points, most decks will be able to deal with the Orc Hunter quite early during the course of a game. If you are not ready the engagement cost of 35 means you can wait a bit before engaging. The shadow effect, however, can be quite dangerous when coming up on one of the stronger enemies like Mugash himself.
• Orc Skirmisher: Similar to the Orc Hunter you should be ready to deal the damage to a character when engaging this enemy. This could mean sacrificing your Snowbourn Scout or Squire of the Citadel or having enough healing to heal the damage back up fast enough. In that case, Lembas is quite a strong counter against the Orc Skirmisher. With its medium stats, this enemy can pose a small problem early on but the players should generally be able to take him out easily in the beginning mid-game or even earlier depending on their decks.
• Methedras Orc: The most dangerous standard enemy in this quest, the Methedras Orc can hurt you quite heavily in the early game. The engagement cost of 30 makes it difficult for a lot of decks to avoid him long-term and the threat value of three often means that you don’t even want to do that. In higher player counts with a dedicated combat deck, this enemy should not pose much of a problem, but in solo, it can get difficult to deal with him if you’re not ready. Keeping your threat under thirty is a good idea in those cases. The Forced effect has the potential to steal central cards from your hand and prevent you from seeing them again for a while, but generally, it will only become threatening to your game plan if you keep him around engaged with you for multiple turns. The shadow effect is also really dangerous since at some points you will probably have to chump-block an enemy. Consider keeping at least one shadow cancellation card back to deal with this.
• Prowling Wolf: Immune to the effects that target orcs (both in the players’ deck as well as the encounter deck), this wolf, like quite a few cards in the encounter deck, becomes significantly more dangerous in higher player counts. In four player games, his attack can easily be boosted up to values of six or higher on the first turn. Once you get your location control rolling his threat diminishes, but an early reveal of that enemy in a four-player game, combined with the fact that some player will probably have to engage it because of its engagement cost of 28, can put a serious dent in your plans. Cards like Noiseless Movement can make sure you don’t have to engage this enemy before clearing a couple of locations.
• Orc Hound: This enemy looks as annoying as it is. Although not really dangerous on its own, the Surge keyword along with the effect of exhausting one of your characters when you inevitably engage it can completely destroy a well-planned turn of engaging and destroying an enemy. The danger certainly lies in the game text, especially if you don’t have a character to spare for this turn. Standard chump-blockers make good targets to exhaust and you can (barring the shadow effect on Broken Lands) often take its attack undefended relatively safe.

Treacheries

The danger of the treacheries in this quest is defined by only one of them: Orc Territory. Since this card is in most cases (and especially in higher player counts) a must-cancel, you often want to hold your cancellation back which means you will have to deal with the effects on the other treacheries, that, while not as punishing, can also severely hurt your game plans.

• Orc Territory: This is the big one. With four players this card will add at least eight threat to the staging area, probably preventing you from questing successfully and losing a time counter in the process. As if this wasn’t enough, should you still quest successfully (which does not even mean you put progress on the quest card on stage 2) each engaged orc makes an immediate attack. In solo and also with two players this effect can be manageable, especially if you have some quest insurance like Faramir on the table so you can avoid the attacks and still put progress on stage 2. On higher player counts this is usually a game-ending treachery and in almost all cases best described as ‘cancel or lose’.
• Take Cover!: In most cases a surging Necromancer’s Reach this treachery can be quite dangerous should you bring a lot of one hit point allies or reveal it back-to-back. The second case is probably the only one in the game where you can consider removing the first of the two-time counters from stage 2. On stage three, depending on your board state and the kind of allies you’re playing removing the time counter can become an option more often. Other than that, despite this treachery only being a small part of the encounter deck, its existence probably justifies bringing some decent healing itself. It also can be the better treachery to cancel in true solo, where the effect of Orc Territory isn’t that dangerous.
• Orc Hunting Party: This card will whiff more often than not. In lower player counts or if you’re able to consistently destroy the enemies the encounter deck throws at you, Orc Hunting Party will in a lot of cases just replace itself. However, should you have a lot of enemies in the staging area, and especially if you’re trying to get around dealing with a Mugash’s Guard early game, this can be a dangerous card to reveal since you will suddenly have to deal with a lot of enemies as well as a lot of shadow effects. Because of this, it is advisable to plan around engaging and destroying enemies early on, which will also lower the risk of not being able to overcome the threat in the staging area. This card will also have no effect but Surge when there are only creature enemies in play.

Tips and Tricks

• Never remove time counters. This rule isn’t technically as hard as stated here, because you can remove one time counter without having to suffer the consequences, but it should stick to your mind to only do this in the direst of circumstances. Otherwise, something unforeseeable will inevitably happen and after the last time counter is removed you will flood the staging area with additional cards.
• Location control is key in this quest. As always, this becomes even more important on higher player counts, but since you will start the quest with locations already in the staging area and probably reveal even more during the first turns, preventing location lock early is the most important aspect in order to win this scenario.
• If you have Strider’s Path in your hand it makes sense to do some calculations after each location you reveal. Especially if you have Broken Lands as the active and reveal a location with fewer quest points you should think about whether you’ll be able to quest past it or if you should switch it out with a location that’s easier to clear.
• Everything that places progress on the active locations can help in putting progress on the quest. Legolas, Blade of Gondolin and Strength of Will are all good options for this.
• If you’re on the verge of getting location locked, Celduin Traveler and Short Cut both can offer a possibility of preventing adding yet another location to the staging area. Encounter scrying and discard effects like Lore Denethor or Firyal can achieve comparable effects.
• You need to be able to quest well early against this quest. Questing unsuccessfully on purpose on the first turn in order to be able to build your board state will not be a viable strategy here. Bring your high willpower heroes!
• Build your decks for consistency. With a huge chunk of your deck unavailable to you, in the beginning, you cannot rely on getting the cards you need to set up a combo. Even a card like Heed the Dream might not get you what you need if the card you’re looking for is at the bottom of your out-of-play deck.
• Expanding on this, having some recursion for cards in your discard pile like the Record attachments, Hama or Dwarven Tomb can help to mitigate the threat of you having to discard an important card from your out-of-play deck.
• With the high amount of threat on the encounter cards and the need to quest past the active location every turn, bringing some quest insurance like ally Faramir or Galadriel with Nenya can get you out of some tight spots in this quest. These cards can also work well against the effect on Orc Territory on lower player counts.

Playthroughs

• Four players: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FG5cPkIujsk
• Three players: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK8Y-Yh3QGk
• Two players and one player: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xmm6ux9S3tA
• True Solo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzKO8hAjzEY

Make no mistake, this quest is definitely beatable. It can, however, be very swingy depending on when you find the dangerous enemies in your out-of-play deck, which cards you reveal in the early game, how fast you can find your location control (it might be buried in your out-of-play deck) and whether you are able to cancel a game-ending treachery. Should the odds be in your favour, you have good chances of capturing Mugash successfully. (Or not that successfully considering what happens in the next quest.)