Topic summary
Wild Card Series
The Wild Card Series (WCS; formerly known as the Wild Card Game (WCG) from 2012 to 2019 and in 2021) is the opening round of postseason play in Major League Baseball (MLB), featuring the American League Wild Card Series (ALWCS) and the National League Wild Card Series (NLWCS). A single wild card game was instituted in 2012. This became a best-of-three playoff wild card series in 2020 as a one-off, and became permanent (albeit with fewer teams playing than in the 2020 series) starting in the 2022 season.
The lowest-seeded division winner and three wild card teams in each league play in a best-of-three series after the end of the regular season. The winners of each league's wild card series advance to face the two-best division winners in that league's Division Series. This expansion of the postseason abolished any regular-season-extending tie-breaker games.