title... but idk where to start lol, so much going on in standard atm thats where my main focus is but trying to pick up staples... i assume i should just start w/ lands?

Personally, I would start with the deck, and just use an M13 / Inn / RtR mana base (Shocks and checks).

That's what I did with my modern deck. Lands are definitely the most difficult pieces to get, and more people are willing to trade creatures, etc, for your stuff. Lands are typically used as currency. If you want to just get a simple start into modern, just build a basic version of your deck and evolve it over time. Deck lists don't change too often in these formats, so you should be good for some time.

Also depends on the deck, I built modern affinity and it's a "budget" legacy deck with a few additions. It requires none of the terribly expensive lands.

If you want to get into Legacy you should at least start with a deck so that you can play against the various types of decks and get a feel for the format. Once you know the competition a bit more, it can help you pick a deck that you like. If you want help picking an established Legacy deck to play, then this chart is surprisingly useful:

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?26838-Funny-quot-What-to-play-in-Legacy-quot-flowchart-guide

The Source has all sorts of great topics to help you learn the intricacies of the different decks.

If you're just interested in playing Legacy locally, then start with a deck idea that you like and slowly improve the deck as you can. I started playing Legacy with a non-traditional Goblin/Burn deck (ala Red Decks Wins):

http://deckbox.org/sets/242493

Once I got the deck to a point that I was happy with it, I started building other decks so that I would have some options as to what to play.

I think that the cheapest tier 1 deck in Legacy right now is probably Death and Taxes, though there are a number of tier 2 and tier 3 options that are considerably cheaper.