As was shown in https://tex.stackexchange.com/q/416614 it seems that legend transposed does not do the right thing if not all \addplot commands have a corresponding \legend entry.
Here I add another example when transposing fails.
% used PGFPlots v1.15
\documentclass[border=1pt]{standalone}
\usepackage{pgfplots}
\pgfplotsset{compat=1.15}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\begin{axis}[
legend columns=2,
transpose legend,
legend pos=north west,
cycle multiindex* list={
color list\nextlist
mark list*\nextlist
},
]
\addplot {x}; %\addlegendentry{A}
\addplot {2*x}; %\addlegendentry{B}
\addplot {3*x}; %\addlegendentry{C}
\addplot {4*x}; %\addlegendentry{D}
\addplot {5*x}; %\addlegendentry{E}
\addplot {6*x}; %\addlegendentry{F}
\addplot {7*x}; %\addlegendentry{G}
\legend{
\strut $A$,,% <-- added a second comma
% \strut $B$,
\strut $C$,
\strut $D$,
\strut $E$,
\strut $F$,
\strut $G$,
}
\end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}