Home-field advantage in the NLCS does not belong to a specific team in advance; it goes to whichever of the two NL finalists finished the regular season with the better record (higher winning percentage).

How NLCS home field is decided

  • MLB’s current playoff format gives home field in each series to the team with the better regular-season winning percentage, regardless of division title or Wild Card status.
  • If both NLCS teams finish with the same regular-season record, MLB tiebreakers like head-to-head record are used to decide which club hosts more games.

What “home field” means

  • The team with home-field advantage hosts Games 1 and 2 and then Games 6 and 7 (if necessary), while the other team hosts Games 3, 4, and 5.
  • This structure is designed to reward the stronger regular-season team, but historical data shows that home field does not guarantee winning the series.

Why you can’t know in advance

  • Because NLCS participants and their final records change every year, there is no fixed answer like “the NL West champion” or “whoever wins the All-Star Game” anymore.
  • To know who will have home field in a given year’s NLCS, you must wait until the two NLCS teams are set and then compare their regular-season records.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.