If I'm just looking to cash in a tournament( not win just make the cash) is the easiest way to do this to join the tournament in the last few seconds before registration finishes. Then play real slowly to try and limp into the cash or would I be likely to lose most of the time doing this.
I enjoy late registering in MTTs and all my cashes and wins on a particular site was all from late registering with anywhere between 10-20 BBs.
The key to late registering and running deep successfully is a bit of luck and really strong late stage, short stack play. This means being really aggressive and not being afraid to put your stack at risks to double up multiple times in order to make deep runs. Also, if you're short stacking, you need to play for the win and not to just min cash as you're not going to min-cashing enough to show a profit.
Lets say pokerstars pays 20% of players in MTTs. In order to cash in 110 MTTs, you need to play 550 of them. This is assuming that you're ITM finishes is on par with pokerstar's. If you play 550 $1 + .10 MTTs, that's costing you $605. Lets say you min-cash in 110 of them (20%) and you make $3 per cash. That's only $330. You're still down -$275. You would have to cash in just under 37% of MTTs to make a slight profit and you aren't going to do that with late registering and playing passively.
The main problem with your strategy is that the blinds and antes are going to eat you up if you're just folding and limping. And limping is the worst thing you can do with a short stack. Keep in mind that just because late registration has ended doesn't mean you're near the money. You likely have another hour or so of play and people busting out before you get close to the bubble. So, if you're late registering with 10 BBs, do you really think you're going to last an hour of folding to make the money? Maybe once in a blue moon, but never enough to show a profit.
I was interested in trying to make as many cashes as I could in a week to get onto the pokerstars mtt leaderboard. Typically you need to make 110 - 130 cashes per week in the micro stake mtts to top the leader board. I don't see how you could possibly achieve this if you enter tournaments early. Surely you would not have the time to play that many tournaments if you played from the beginning.
However, if you enter last minute and hope to double up you may only have to win one hand to reach cash. Obviously, it is more risky but sometimes by the end of the registration period there are only a few players to eliminate before you make the cash.
How to achieve making 110-130+ cashes in a week? Multi-table. Mass multi-table. It's the only way.
The question is, are you good enough of an MTT player where you can multi-table and do well enough to where you either profit or whatever reward you get for making the leader board covers your rake and losses to give you a profit?
If not, then I wouldn't even concern myself with trying to cash in 130 MTTs in a week and, instead, focus on improving your MTT game as a whole. Also, if we look at the example I gave above of you cashing in 20% of MTTs and still being down -$275, unless top place gives you over $275 in prizes, this whole min-cash plan is a huge waste of time because you'll still be down overall.
Not only that, but are you sure it's just cashes? I don't play on stars, but most leader board contest award points based on how high one finishes. So, getting 110-130 min-cashes might not mean anything and can easily be nullified by a player scoring more points making multiple final tables. Making your efforts a waste, again, of time. I don't know, so may you can clarify for me...
As for your second part, I highly doubt the MTT will be on the bubble just hands after late register ends. It just doesn't work that way. Maybe with the exception of hyper-turbos. And, if thats the case, you should only have about ~5 BBs or less to start. The next time you late reg into a game, look at how many players are remaining compared to how many get paid. I'm positive it's a lot more than you think.
My ultimate advice is, it sounds like you don't have a very strong MTT game. So, I would focus on improving that first instead of wasting your time with leaderboards as you're probably ending up losing more money just trying to meet the 110-130 MTT cash quota.
Instead, focus more on playing well and being more consistent in your deep MTT runs to make a more solid overall profit instead of just relying on min-cashing. Remember, the deeper you go in MTTs, the more money you make. A top 3 finish > a handful of cashes. Then, after your game has improved, go for the leaderboards. Pokerstars is always going to have some type of MTT contest or similar for players to win prizes, so don't worry if you're missing out on it now. Work on a solid MTT foundation first.