Intricate routes to chaos in the Mackey-Glass delayed feedback system

► We report a new class of bifurcations: waveform deformations. ► We describe new characteristics in phase diagrams of delayed feedback. ► We explain how waveform deformations appear and disappear. ► Deformations imply a complex mosaic of phases in control space. Waveforms may be efficiently encoded using a small set of sub-patterns.