The cap was for the start of the fighting period. Honestly with or without it there was a huge disparity in stats. We had applicants with 20k total and 99.9k total. It's kinda impossible to run an event where stats won't play a part, but the vast majority of participants are within 2x each other's stats which means loadout choice, build, temps, etc can be enough to swing it.
We discussed having a cap throughout but given the month-long leadup, that would have required us to prevent noobs training at all for a large chunk of it, which also wasn't something we wanted to do, felt exploitative to lure people into an event and then nerf their natural growth. We picked 100k on the 18th with the idea that people who joined as very new players at the first announcement would likely get naturally to around that around that time, and then the time after the 18th and before the fights wasn't massive.
I should say that the one who has done a bunch of 99k happy jumps since the 18th managed it by being a top new player hitter in elim, and gaining a bunch of prizes that let him afford it, so that's his own hard work, and not just credit card swiping or freeloading in some way, and a pathway that in theory was open to anyone, he's just amazing enough to be able to do it.
(We may in fact do the stats stuff differently next year, but we'll need to discuss how to walk the line between stunting people's growth and making sure it's still fun for everyone)