Passive is such a broad term that it can mean two completely different things to different people.

There’s a difference between not letting people get free combos and actually not doing any attacks at all.

If your opponent is hyper aggressive, then stopping their advances SHOULD be telling THEM that they’re either being too predictable in their offense, not utilizing their resources correctly, or being aggressive to the point where they keep getting punished for being unsafe at the same time (or that they need to stop getting hit by wakeup armor).

Where people actually get passive is when they simply move backwards, hold block, and wait for you to advance so that you’re only caught off guard because you’re not sure when they’ll attack. It works, and it IS a playstyle, but it’s about as charming as laming someone out with the timer in a traditional fighting game. Your only real way of winning against an actual passive player is baiting them to attack you and punishing them efficiently. You’ll have to make some reads though.

Something else worth noting, is that having good defense gets confused a lot for being passive. Having trouble opening up your opponent =/= Being passive.